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1
Ali Pacha
By
Alexandre Dumas pere
2
Chapter 1
The beginning of the nineteenth century was a time of audacious enterprises
and strange vicissitudes of fortune. Whilst Western Europe in turn
submitted and struggled against a sub-lieutenant who made himself an
emperor, who at his pleasure made kings and destroyed kingdoms, the
ancient eastern part of the Continent, like mummies which preserve but the
semblance of life, was gradually tumbling to pieces, and getting parcelled
out amongst bold adventurers who skirmished over its ruins. Without
mentioning local revolts which produced only short-lived struggles and
trifling changes of administration, such as that of Djezzar Pacha, who
refused to pay tribute because he thought himself impregnable in his citadel
of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, or that of Passevend-Oglou Pacha, who planted himself
on the walls of Widdin as defender of the Janissaries against the institution
of the regular militia decreed by Sultan Selim at Stamboul, there were wider
spread rebellions which attacked the constitution of the Turkish Empire and
diminished its extent; amongst them that of Czerni-Georges, which raised
Servia to the position of a free state; of Mahomet Ali, who made his pachalik
of Egypt into a kingdom; and finally that of the man whose history we are
about to narrate, Ali Tepeleni, Pacha of Janina, whose long resistance to the
suzerain power preceded and brought about the regeneration of Greece.
Ali's own will counted for nothing in this important movement. He foresaw
it, but without ever seeking to aid it, and was powerless to arrest it. He was
not one of those men who place their lives and services at the disposal of
any cause indiscriminately; and his sole aim was to acquire and increase a
power of which he was both the guiding influence, and the end and object.
His nature contained the seeds of every human passion, and he devoted all
his long life to their development and gratification. This explains his whole
temperament; his actions were merely the natural outcome of his character
confronted with circumstances. Few men have understood themselves better
or been on better terms with the orbit of their existence, and as the
personality of an individual is all the more striking, in proportion as it
reflects the manners and ideas of the time and country in which he has
lived, so the figure of Ali Pacha stands out, if not one of the most brilliant, at
least one of the most singular in contemporary history.
From the middle of the eighteenth century Turkey had been a prey to the
political gangrene of which she is vainly trying to cure herself to-day, and
3
which, before long, will dismember her in the sight of all Europe. Anarchy
and disorder reigned from one end of the empire to the other. The Osmanli
race, bred on conquest alone, proved good for nothing when conquest failed.
It naturally therefore came to pass when Sobieski, who saved Christianity
under the walls of Vienna, as before his time Charles Martel had saved it on
the plains of Poitiers, had set bounds to the wave of Mussulman westward
invasion, and definitely fixed a limit which it should not pass, that the
Osmanli warlike instincts recoiled upon themselves. The haughty
descendants of Ortogrul, who considered themselves born to command,
seeing victory forsake them, fell back upon tyranny. Vainly did reason
expostulate that oppression could not long be exercised by hands which had
lost their strength, and that peace imposed new and different labours on
those who no longer triumphed in war; they would listen to nothing; and, as
fatalistic when condemned to a state of peace as when they marched forth
conquering and to conquer, they cowered down in magnificent listlessness,
leaving the whole burden of their support on conquered peoples. Like
ignorant farmers, who exhaust fertile fields by forcing crops; they rapidly
ruined their vast and rich empire by exorbitant exactions. Inexorable
conquerors and insatiable masters, with one hand they flogged their slaves
and with the other plundered them. Nothing was superior to their insolence,
nothing on a level with their greed. They were never glutted, and never
relaxed their extortions. But in proportion as their needs increased on the
one hand, so did their resources diminish on the other. Their oppressed
subjects soon found that they must escape at any cost from oppressors
whom they could neither appease nor satisfy. Each population took the
steps best suited to its position and character; some chose inertia, others
violence. The inhabitants of the plains, powerless and shelterless, bent like
reeds before the storm and evaded the shock against which they were
unable to stand. The mountaineers planted themselves like rocks in a
torrent, and dammed its course with all their might. On both sides arose a
determined resistance, different in method, similar in result. In the case of
the peasants labour came to a stand-still; in that of the hill folk open war
broke out. The grasping exactions of the tyrant dominant body produced
nothing from waste lands and armed mountaineers; destitution and revolt
were equally beyond their power to cope with; and all that was left for
tyranny to govern was a desert enclosed by a wall.
But, all the same, the wants of a magnificent sultan, descendant of the
Prophet and distributor of crowns, must be supplied; and to do this, the
Sublime Porte needed money. Unconsciously imitating the Roman Senate,
the Turkish Divan put up the empire for sale by public auction. All
4
employments were sold to the highest bidder; pachas, beys, cadis, ministers
of every rank, and clerks of every class had to buy their posts from their
sovereign and get the money back out of his subjects. They spent their
money in the capital, and recuperated themselves in the provinces. And as
there was no other law than their master's pleasure, so there was no other
guarantee than his caprice. They had therefore to set quickly to work; the
post might be lost before its cost had been recovered. Thus all the science of
administration resolved itself into plundering as much and as quickly as
possible. To this end, the delegate of imperial power delegated in his turn,
on similar conditions, other agents to seize for him and for themselves all
they could lay their hands on; so that the inhabitants of the empire might be
divided into three classes--those who were striving to seize everything; those
who were trying to save a little; and those who, having nothing and hoping
for nothing, took no interest in affairs at all.
Albania was one of the most difficult provinces to manage. Its inhabitants
were poor and brave, and the nature of the country was mountainous and
inaccessible. The pachas had great difficulty in collecting tribute, because
the people were given to fighting for their bread. Whether Mahomedans or
Christians, the Albanians were above all soldiers. Descended on the one side
from the unconquerable Scythians, on the other from the ancient
Macedonians, not long since masters of the world, crossed with Norman
adventurers brought eastwards by the great movement of the Crusades; they
felt the blood of warriors flow in their veins, and that war was their element.
Sometimes at feud with one another, canton against canton, village against
village, often even house against house; sometimes rebelling against the
government their sanjaks; sometimes in league with these against the
sultan; they never rested from combat except in an armed peace. Each tribe
had its military organisation, each family its fortified stronghold, each man
his gun on his shoulder. When they had nothing better to do, they tilled
their fields, or mowed their neighbours', carrying off, it should be noted, the
crop; or pastured their flocks, watching the opportunity to trespass over
pasture limits. This was the normal and regular life of the population of
Epirus, Thesprotia, Thessaly, and Upper Albania. Lower Albania, less
strong, was also less active and bold; and there, as in many other parts of
Turkey, the dalesman was often the prey of the mountaineer. It was in the
mountain districts where were preserved the recollections of Scander Beg,
and where the manners of ancient Laconia prevailed, the deeds of the brave
soldier were sung on the lyre, and the skilful robber quoted as an example
to the children by the father of the family. Village feasts were held on the
booty taken from strangers; and the favourite dish was always a stolen
5
sheep. Every man was esteemed in proportion to his skill and courage, and
a man's chances of making a good match were greatly enhanced when he
acquired the reputation of being an agile mountaineer and a good bandit.
The Albanians proudly called this anarchy liberty, and religiously guarded a
state of disorder bequeathed by their ancestors, which always assured the
first place to the most valiant.
It was amidst men and manners such as these that Ali Tepeleni was born.
He boasted that he belonged to the conquering race, and that he descended
from an ancient Anatolian family which had crossed into Albania with the
troops of Bajazet Ilderim. But it is made certain by the learned researches of
M. de Pouqueville that he sprang from a native stock, and not an Asiatic
one, as he pretended. His ancestors were Christian Skipetars, who became
Mussulmans after the Turkish invasion, and his ancestry certainly cannot
be traced farther back than the end of the sixteenth century.
Mouktar Tepeleni, his grandfather, perished in the Turkish expedition
against Corfu, in 1716. Marshal Schullemburg, who defended the island,
having repulsed the enemy with loss, took Mouktar prisoner on Mount San
Salvador, where he was in charge of a signalling party, and with a barbarity
worthy of his adversaries, hung him without trial. It must be admitted that
the memory of this murder must have had the effect of rendering Ali badly
disposed towards Christians.
Mouktar left three sons, two of whom, Salik and Mahomet, were born of the
same mother, a lawful wife, but the mother of the youngest, Veli, was a
slave. His origin was no legal bar to his succeeding like his brothers. The
family was one of the richest in the town of Tepelen, whose name it bore; it
enjoyed an income of six thousand piastres, equal to twenty thousand
francs. This was a large fortune in a poor country, where, all commodities
were cheap. But the Tepeleni family, holding the rank of beys, had to
maintain a state like that of the great financiers of feudal Europe. They had
to keep a large stud of horses, with a great retinue of servants and men-at-
arms, and consequently to incur heavy expenses; thus they constantly
found their revenue inadequate. The most natural means of raising it which
occurred to them was to diminish the number of those who shared it;
therefore the two elder brothers, sons of the wife, combined against Veli, the
6
son of the slave, and drove him out of the house. The latter, forced to leave
home, bore his fate like a brave man, and determined to levy exactions on
others to compensate him for the losses incurred through his brothers. He
became a freebooter, patrolling highroads and lanes, with his gun on his
shoulder and his yataghan in his belt, attacking, holding for ransom, or
plundering all whom he encountered.
After some years of this profitable business, he found himself a wealthy man
and chief of a warlike band. Judging that the moment for vengeance had
arrived, he marched for Tepelen, which he reached unsuspected, crossed the
river Vojutza, the ancient Aous, penetrated the streets unresisted, and
presented himself before the paternal house, in which his brothers,
forewarned, had barricaded themselves. He at once besieged them, soon
forced the gates, and pursued them to a tent, in which they took a final
refuge. He surrounded this tent, waited till they were inside it, and then set
fire to the four corners. "See," said he to those around him, "they cannot
accuse me of vindictive reprisals; my brothers drove me out of doors, and I
retaliate by keeping them at home for ever."
In a few moments he was his father's sole heir and master of Tepelen.
Arrived at the summit of his ambition, he gave up free-booting, and
established himself in the town, of which he became chief ago. He had
already a son by a slave, who soon presented him with another son, and
afterwards with a daughter, so that he had no reason to fear dying without
an heir. But finding himself rich enough to maintain more wives and bring
up many children, he desired to increase his credit by allying himself to
some great family of the country. He therefore solicited and obtained the
hand of Kamco, daughter of a bey of Conitza. This marriage attached him by
the ties of relationship to the principal families of the province, among
others to Kourd Pacha, Vizier of Serat, who was descended from the
illustrious race of Scander Beg. After a few years, Veli had by his new wife a
son named Ali, the subject of this history, and a daughter named Chainitza.
In spite of his intentions to reform, Veli could not entirely give up his old
habits. Although his fortune placed him altogether above small gains and
losses, he continued to amuse himself by raiding from time to time sheep,
goats, and other perquisites, probably to keep his hand in. This innocent
exercise of his taste was not to the fancy of his neighbours, and brawls and
fights recommenced in fine style. Fortune did not always favour him, and
7
the old mountaineer lost in the town part of what he had made on the hills.
Vexations soured his temper and injured his health. Notwithstanding the
injunctions of Mahomet, he sought consolation in wine, which soon closed
his career. He died in 1754.
8
Chapter 2
Ali thus at thirteen years of age was free to indulge in the impetuosity of his
character. From his early youth he had manifested a mettle and activity rare
in young Turks, haughty by nature and self-restrained by education.
Scarcely out of the nursery, he spent his time in climbing mountains,
wandering through forests, scaling precipices, rolling in snow, inhaling the
wind, defying the tempests, breathing out his nervous energy through every
pore. Possibly he learnt in the midst of every kind of danger to brave
everything and subdue everything; possibly in sympathy with the majesty of
nature, he felt aroused in him a need of personal grandeur which nothing
could satiate. In vain his father sought to calm his savage temper, and
restrain his vagabond spirit; nothing was of any use. As obstinate as
intractable, he set at defiance all efforts and all precautions. If they shut
him up, he broke the door or jumped out of the window; if they threatened
him, he pretended to comply, conquered by fear, and promised everything
that was required, but only to break his word the first opportunity. He had a
tutor specially attached to his person and charged to supervise all his
actions. He constantly deluded him by fresh tricks, and when he thought
himself free from the consequences, he maltreated him with gross violence.
It was only in his youth, after his father's death, that he became more
manageable; he even consented to learn to read, to please his mother, whose
idol he was, and to whom in return he gave all his affection.
If Kamco had so strong a liking for Ali, it was because she found in him, not
only her blood, but also her character. During the lifetime of her husband,
whom she feared, she seemed only an ordinary woman; but as soon as his
eyes were closed, she gave free scope to the violent passions which agitated
her bosom. Ambitious, bold, vindictive, she assiduously cultivated the germs
of ambition, hardihood, and vengeance which already strongly showed
themselves in the young Ali. "My son," she was never tired of telling him, "he
who cannot defend his patrimony richly deserves to lose it. Remember that
the property of others is only theirs so long as they are strong enough to
keep it, and that when you find yourself strong enough to take it from them,
it is yours. Success justifies everything, and everything is permissible to him
who has the power to do it."
Ali, when he reached the zenith of his greatness, used to declare that his
success was entirely his mother's work. "I owe everything to my mother," he
9
said one day to the French Consul; "for my father, when he died, left me
nothing but a den of wild beasts and a few fields. My imagination, inflamed
by the counsels of her who has given me life twice over, since she has made
me both a man and a vizier, revealed to me the secret of my destiny.
Thenceforward I saw nothing in Tepelen but the natal air from which I was
to spring on the prey which I devoured mentally. I dreamt of nothing else
but power, treasures, palaces, in short what time has realised and still
promises; for the point I have now reached is not the limit of my hopes."
Kamco did not confine herself to words; she employed every means to
increase the fortune of her beloved son and to make him a power. Her first
care was to poison the children of Veli's favourite slave, who had died before
him. Then, at ease about the interior of her family, she directed her
attention to the exterior. Renouncing all the habit of her sex, she abandoned
the veil and the distaff, and took up arms, under pretext of maintaining the
rights of her children. She collected round her her husband's old partisans,
whom she attached to her service, some by presents, others by various
favours, and she gradually enlisted all the lawless and adventurous men in
Toscaria. With their aid, she made herself all powerful in Tepelen, and
inflicted the most rigorous persecutions on such as remained hostile to her.
But the inhabitants of the two adjacent villages of Kormovo and Kardiki,
fearing lest this terrible woman, aided by her son, now grown into a man,
should strike a blow against their independence, made a secret alliance
against her, with the object of putting her out of the way the first convenient
opportunity. Learning one day that Ali had started on a distant expedition
with his best soldiers; they surprised Tepelen under cover of night, and
carried off Kamco and her daughter Chainitza captives to Kardiki. It was
proposed to put them to death; and sufficient evidence to justify their
execution was not wanting, but their beauty saved their lives; their captors
preferred to revenge themselves by licentiousness rather than by murder.
Shut up all day in prison, they only emerged at night to pass into the arms
of the men who had won them by lot the previous morning. This state of
things lasted for a month, at the end of which a Greek of Argyro-Castron,
named G. Malicovo, moved by compassion for their horrible fate, ransomed
them for twenty thousand piastres, and took them back to Tepelen.
Ali had just returned. He was accosted by his mother and sister, pale with
fatigue, shame, and rage. They told him what had taken place, with cries
10
and tears, and Kamco added, fixing her distracted eyes upon him, "My son!
my son! my soul will enjoy no peace till Kormovo and Kardiki destroyed by
thy scimitar, will no longer exist to bear witness to my dishonour."
Ali, in whom this sight and this story had aroused sanguinary passions,
promised a vengeance proportioned to the outrage, and worked with all his
might to place himself in a position to keep his word. A worthy son of his
father, he had commenced life in the fashion of the heroes of ancient Greece,
stealing sheep and goats, and from the age of fourteen years he had
acquired an equal reputation to that earned by the son of Jupiter and Maia.
When he grew to manhood, he extended his operations. At the time of which
we are speaking, he had long practised open pillage. His plundering
expeditions added to his mother's savings, who since her return from
Kardiki had altogether withdrawn from public life, and devoted herself to
household duties, enabled him to collect a considerable force for am
expedition against Kormovo, one of the two towns he had sworn to destroy.
He marched against it at the head of his banditti, but found himself
vigorously opposed, lost part of his force, and was obliged to save himself
and the rest by flight. He did not stop till he reached Tepelen, where he had
a warm reception from Kamco, whose thirst for vengeance had been
disappointed by his defeat. "Go!" said she, "go, coward! go spin with the
women in the harem! The distaff is a better weapon for you than the
scimitar!" The young man answered not a word, but, deeply wounded by
these reproaches, retired to hide his humiliation in the bosom of his old
friend the mountain. The popular legend, always thirsting for the marvelous
in the adventures of heroes, has it that he found in the ruins of a church a
treasure which enabled him to reconstitute his party. But he himself has
contradicted this story, stating that it was by the ordinary methods of rapine
and plunder that he replenished his finances. He selected from his old band
of brigands thirty palikars, and entered, as their bouloubachi, or leader of
the group, into the service of the Pacha of Negropont. But he soon tired of
the methodical life he was obliged to lead, and passed into Thessaly, where,
following the example of his father Veli, he employed his time in brigandage
on the highways. Thence he raided the Pindus chain of mountains,
plundered a great number of villages, and returned to Tepelen, richer and
consequently more esteemed than ever.
He employed his fortune and influence in collecting a formidable guerilla
force, and resumed his plundering operations. Kurd Pacha soon found
himself compelled, by the universal outcry of the province, to take active
11
measures against this young brigand. He sent against him a division of
troops, which defeated him and brought him prisoner with his men to Berat,
the capital of Central Albania and residence of the governor. The country
flattered itself that at length it was freed from its scourge. The whole body of
bandits was condemned to death; but Ali was not the man to surrender his
life so easily. Whilst they were hanging his comrades, he threw himself at
the feet of the pacha and begged for mercy in the name of his parents,
excusing himself on account of his youth, and promising a lasting reform.
The pacha, seeing at his feet a comely youth, with fair hair and blue eyes, a
persuasive voice, and eloquent tongue, and in whose veins flowed the same
blood as his own, was moved with pity and pardoned him. Ali got off with a
mild captivity in the palace of his powerful relative, who heaped benefits
upon him, and did all he could to lead him into the paths of probity. He
appeared amenable to these good influences, and bitterly to repent his past
errors. After some years, believing in his reformation, and moved by the
prayers of Kamco, who incessantly implored the restitution of her dear son,
the generous pacha restored him his liberty, only giving him to understand
that he had no more mercy to expect if he again disturbed the public peace.
Ali taking the threat seriously did not run the risk of braving it, and, on the
contrary, did all he could to conciliate the man whose anger he dared not
kindle. Not only did he keep the promise he had made to live quietly, but by
his good conduct he caused his former escapades to be forgotten, putting
under obligation all his neighbours, and attaching to himself, through the
services he rendered them, a great number of friendly disposed persons. In
this manner he soon assumed a distinguished and honourable rank among
the beys of the country, and being of marriageable age, he sought and
formed an alliance with the daughter of Capelan Tigre, Pacha of Delvino,
who resided at Argyro-Castron. This union, happy on both sides, gave him,
with one of the most accomplished women in Epirus, a high position and
great influence.
It seemed as if this marriage were destined to wean Ali forever from his
former turbulent habits and wild adventures. But the family into which he
had married afforded violent contrasts and equal elements of good and
mischief. If Emineh, his wife, was a model of virtue, his father-in-law,
Capelan, was a composition of every vice--selfish, ambitious, turbulent,
fierce. Confident in his courage, and further emboldened by his remoteness
from the capital, the Pacha of Delvino gloried in setting law and authority at
defiance.
12
Ali's disposition was too much like that of his father-in-law to prevent him
from taking his measure very quickly. He soon got on good terms with him,
and entered into his schemes, waiting for an opportunity to denounce him
and become his successor. For this opportunity he had not long to wait.
Capelan's object in giving his daughter to Tepeleni was to enlist him among
the beys of the province to gain independence, the ruling passion of viziers.
The cunning young man pretended to enter into the views of his father-in-
law, and did all he could to urge him into the path of rebellion.
An adventurer named Stephano Piccolo, an emissary of Russia, had just
raised in Albania the standard of the Cross and called to arms all the
Christians of the Acroceraunian Mountains. The Divan sent orders to all the
pachas of Northern Turkey in Europe to instantly march against the
insurgents and quell the rising in blood.
Instead of obeying the orders of the Divan and joining Kurd Pacha, who had
summoned him, Capelan, at the instigation of his son-in-law, did all he
could to embarrass the movement of the imperial troops, and without openly
making common cause with the insurgents, he rendered them substantial
aid in their resistance. They were, notwithstanding, conquered and
dispersed; and their chief, Stephano Piccolo, had to take refuge in the
unexplored caves of Montenegro.
When the struggle was over, Capelan, as Ali had foreseen, was summoned to
give an account of his conduct before the roumeli-valicy, supreme judge over
Turkey in Europe. He was not only accused of the gravest offences, but
proofs of them were forwarded to the Divan by the very man who had
instigated them. There could be no doubt as to the result of the inquiry;
therefore, the pacha, who had no suspicions of his son-in-law's duplicity,
determined not to leave his pachalik. That was not in accordance with the
plans of Ali, who wished to succeed to both the government and the wealth
of his father-in-law. He accordingly made the most plausible remonstrances
against the inefficacy and danger of such a resistance. To refuse to plead
was tantamount to a confession of guilt, and was certain to bring on his
head a storm against which he was powerless to cope, whilst if he obeyed
the orders of the roumeli-valicy he would find it easy to excuse himself. To
give more effect to his perfidious advice, Ali further employed the innocent
13
Emineh, who was easily alarmed on her father's account. Overcome by the
reasoning of his son-in-law and the tears of his daughter, the unfortunate
pacha consented to go to Monastir, where he had been summoned to
appear, and where he was immediately arrested and beheaded.
Ali's schemes had succeeded, but both his ambition and his cupidity were
frustrated. Ali, Bey of Argyro-Castron, who had throughout shown himself
devoted to the sultan, was nominated Pacha of Delvino in place of Capelan.
He sequestered all the property of his predecessor, as confiscated to the
sultan, and thus deprived Ali Tepeleni of all the fruits of his crime.
This disappointment kindled the wrath of the ambitious Ali. He swore
vengeance for the spoliation of which he considered himself the victim. But
the moment was not favourable for putting his projects in train. The murder
of Capelan, which its perpetrator intended for a mere crime, proved a huge
blunder. The numerous enemies of Tepeleni, silent under the administration
of the late pacha, whose resentment they had cause to fear, soon made
common cause under the new one, for whose support they had hopes. Ali
saw the danger, sought and found the means to obviate it. He succeeded in
making a match between Ali of Argyro-Castron, who was unmarried, and
Chainitza, his own sister. This alliance secured to him the government of
Tigre, which he held under Capelan. But that was not sufficient. He must
put himself in a state of security against the dangers he had lately
experienced, and establish himself on a firm footing against possible
accidents. He soon formed a plan, which he himself described to the French
Consul in the following words:--
"Years were elapsing," said he, "and brought no important change in my
position. I was an important partisan, it is true, and strongly supported, but
I held no title or Government employment of my own. I recognised the
necessity of establishing myself firmly in my birthplace. I had devoted
friends, and formidable foes bent on my destruction whom I must put out of
the way for my own safety. I set about a plan for destroying them at one
blow, and ended by devising one with which I ought to have commenced my
career. Had I done so, I should have saved much time and pains.
"I was in the habit of going every day, after hunting, for a siesta in a
neighbouring wood. A confidential servant of mine suggested to my enemies
14
the idea of surprising me and assassinating me there. I myself supplied the
plan of the conspiracy, which was adopted. On the day agreed upon, I
preceded my adversaries to the place where I was accustomed to repose, and
caused a goat to be pinioned and muzzled, and fastened under the tree,
covered with my cape; I then returned home by a roundabout path. Soon
after I had left, the conspirators arrived, and fired a volley at the goat.
"They ran up to make certain of my death, but were interrupted by a piquet
of my men, who unexpectedly emerged from a copse where I had posted
them, and they were obliged to return to Tepelen, which they entered,
riotous with joy, crying 'Ali Bey is dead, now we are free!' This news reached
my harem, and I heard the cries of my mother and my wife mingled with the
shouts of my enemies. I allowed the commotion to run its course and reach
its height, so as to indicate which were my friends and which my foes. But
when the former were at the depth of their distress and the latter at the
height of their joy, and, exulting in their supposed victory, had drowned
their prudence and their courage in floods of wine, then, strong in the
justice of my cause, I appeared upon the scene. Now was the time for my
friends to triumph and for my foes to tremble. I set to work at the head of
my partisans, and before sunrise had exterminated the last of my enemies. I
distributed their lands, their houses, and their goods amongst my followers,
and from that moment I could call the town of Tepelen my own."
A less ambitious man might perhaps have remained satisfied with such a
result. But Ali did not look upon the suzerainty of a canton as a final object,
but only as a means to an end; and he had not made himself master of
Tepelen to limit himself to a petty state, but to employ it as a base of
operations.
He had allied himself to Ali of Argyro-Castron to get rid of his enemies; once
free from them, he began to plot against his supplanter. He forgot neither
his vindictive projects nor his ambitious schemes. As prudent in execution
as bold in design, he took good care not to openly attack a man stronger
than himself, and gained by stratagem what he could not obtain by violence.
The honest and straightforward character of his brother-in-law afforded an
easy success to his perfidy. He began by endeavouring to suborn his sister
Chainitza, and several times proposed to her to poison her husband; but
she, who dearly loved the pacha, who was a kind husband and to whom she
had borne two children, repulsed his suggestions with horror, and
15
threatened, if he persisted, to denounce him. Ali, fearing the consequences if
she carried out her threat, begged forgiveness for his wicked plans,
pretended deep repentance, and spoke of his brother-in-law in terms of the
warmest affection. His acting was so consummate that even Chainitza, who
well knew her brother's subtle character, was deceived by it. When he saw
that she was his dupe, knowing that he had nothing more either to fear or to
hope for from that side, he directed his attention to another.
The pacha had a brother named Soliman, whose character nearly resembled
that of Tepeleni. The latter, after having for some time quietly studied him,
thought he discerned in him the man he wanted; he tempted him to kill the
pacha, offering him, as the price of this crime, his whole inheritance and the
hand of Chainitza, only reserving for himself the long coveted sanjak.
Soliman accepted the proposals, and the fratricidal bargain was concluded.
The two conspirators, sole masters of the secret, the horrible nature of
which guaranteed their mutual fidelity, and having free access to the person
of their victim, could not fail in their object.
One day, when they were both received by the pacha in private audience,
Soliman, taking advantage of a moment when he was unobserved, drew a
pistol from his belt and blew out his brother's brains. Chainitza ran at the
sound, and saw her husband lying dead between her brother and her
brother-in-law. Her cries for help were stopped by threats of death if she
moved or uttered a sound. As she lay, fainting with grief and terror, Ali
made a sign to Soliman, who covered her with his cloak, and declared her
his wife. Ali pronounced the marriage concluded, and retired for it to be
consummated. Thus was celebrated this frightful wedding, in the scene of
an awful crime, beside the corpse of a man who a moment before had been
the husband of the bride and the brother of the bridegroom.
The assassins published the death of the pacha, attributing it, as is usual in
Turkey, to a fit of cerebral apoplexy. But the truth soon leaked out from the
lying shrouds in which it had been wrapped. Reports even exceeded the
truth, and public opinion implicated Chainitza in a crime of which she had
been but the witness. Appearances certainly justified these suspicions. The
young wife had soon consoled herself in the arms of her second husband for
the loss of the first, and her son by him presently died suddenly, thus
leaving Soliman in lawful and peaceful possession of all his brother's wealth.
As for the little girl, as she had no rights and could hurt no one, her life was
16
spared and she was eventually married to a bey of Cleisoura, destined in the
sequel to cut a tragic figure in the history of the Tepeleni family.
But Ali was once more deprived of the fruit of his bloody schemes.
Notwithstanding all his intrigues, the sanjak of Delvino was conferred, not
upon him, but upon a bey of one of the first families of Zapouria. But, far
from being discouraged, he recommenced with new boldness and still
greater confidence the work of his elevation, so often begun and so often
interrupted. He took advantage of his increasing influence to ingratiate
himself with the new pacha, and was so successful in insinuating himself
into his confidence, that he was received into the palace and treated like the
pacha's son. There he acquired complete knowledge of the details of the
pachalik and the affairs of the pacha, preparing himself to govern the one
when he had got rid of the other.
The sanjak of Delvino was bounded from Venetian territory by the district of
Buthrotum. Selim, a better neighbour and an abler politician than his
predecessors, sought to renew and preserve friendly commercial relations
with the purveyors of the Magnificent Republic. This wise conduct, equally
advantageous for both the bordering provinces, instead of gaining for the
pacha the praise and favours which he deserved, rendered him suspected at
a court whose sole political idea was hatred of the name of Christian, and
whose sole means of government was terror. Ali immediately perceived the
pacha's error, and the advantage which he himself could derive from it.
Selim, as one of his commercial transactions with the Venetians, had sold
them, for a number of years, the right of felling timber in a forest near Lake
Reloda. Ali immediately took advantage of this to denounce the pacha as
guilty of having alienated the territory of the Sublime Porte, and of a desire
to deliver to the infidels all the province of Delvino. Masking his ambitious
designs under the veil of religion and patriotism, he lamented, in his
denunciatory report, the necessity under which he found himself, as a loyal
subject and faithful Mussulman, of accusing a man who had been his
benefactor, and thus at the same time gained the benefit of crime and the
credit of virtue.
Under the gloomy despotism of the Turks, a man in any position of
responsibility is condemned almost as soon as accused; and if he is not
strong enough to inspire terror, his ruin is certain. Ali received at Tepelen,
where he had retired to more conveniently weave his perfidious plots, an
17
order to get rid of the pacha. At the receipt of the firman of execution he
leaped with joy, and flew to Delvino to seize the prey which was abandoned
to him.
The noble Selim, little suspecting that his protege had become his accuser
and was preparing to become his executioner, received him with more
tenderness than ever, and lodged him, as heretofore, in his palace. Under
the shadow of this hospitable roof, Ali skilfully prepared the consummation
of the crime which was for ever to draw him out of obscurity. He went every
morning to pay his court to the pacha, whose confidence he doubted; then,
one day, feigning illness, he sent excuses for inability to pay his respects to
a man whom he was accustomed to regard as his father, and begged him to
come for a moment into his apartment. The invitation being accepted, he
concealed assassins in one of the cupboards without shelves, so common in
the East, which contain by day the mattresses spread by night on the floor
for the slaves to sleep upon. At the hour fixed, the old man arrived. Ali rose
from his sofa with a depressed air, met him, kissed the hem of his robe, and,
after seating him in his place, himself offered him a pipe-and coffee, which
were accepted. But instead of putting the cup in the hand stretched to
receive it, he let it fall on the floor, where it broke into a thousand pieces.
This was the signal. The assassins sprang from their retreat and darted
upon Selim, who fell, exclaiming, like Caesar, "And it is thou, my son, who
takest my life!"
At the sound of the tumult which followed the assassination, Selim's
bodyguard, running up, found Ali erect, covered with blood, surrounded by
assassins, holding in his hand the firman displayed, and crying with a
menacing voice, "I have killed the traitor Selim by the order of our glorious
sultan; here is his imperial command." At these words, and the sight of the
fatal diploma, all prostrated themselves terror-stricken. Ali, after ordering
the decapitation of Selim, whose head he seized as a trophy, ordered the
cadi, the beys, and the Greek archons to meet at the palace to prepare the
official account of the execution of the sentence. They assembled, trembling;
the sacred hymn of the Fatahat was sung, and the murder declared legal, in
the name of the merciful and compassionate God, Lord of the world.
When they had sealed up the effects of the victim, the murderer left the
palace, taking with him, as a hostage, Mustapha, son of Selim, destined to
be even more unfortunate than his father.
18
A few days afterwards, the Divan awarded to Ali Tepeleni, as a reward for his
zeal for the State and religion, the sanjak of Thessaly, with the title of
Dervendgi-pacha, or Provost Marshal of the roads. This latter dignity was
conferred on the condition of his levying a body of four thousand men to
clear the valley of the Peneus of a multitude of Christian chiefs who
exercised more power than the officers of the Grand Seigneur. The new
pacha took advantage of this to enlist a numerous body of Albanians ready
for any enterprise, and completely devoted to him. With two important
commands, and with this strong force at his back, he repaired to Trikala,
the seat of his government, where he speedily acquired great influence.
His first act of authority was to exterminate the bands of Armatolis, or
Christian militia, which infested the plain. He laid violent hands on all
whom he caught, and drove the rest back into their mountains, splitting
them up into small bands whom he could deal with at his pleasure. At the
same time he sent a few heads to Constantinople, to amuse the sultan and
the mob, and some money to the ministers to gain their support. "For," said
he, "water sleeps, but envy never does." These steps were prudent, and
whilst his credit increased at court, order was reestablished from the defiles
of the Perrebia of Pindus to the vale of Tempe and to the pass of
Thermopylae.
These exploits of the provost-marshal, amplified by Oriental exaggeration,
justified the ideas which were entertained of the capacity of Ali Pacha.
Impatient of celebrity, he took good care himself to spread his fame, relating
his prowess to all comers, making presents to the sultan's officers who came
into his government, and showing travellers his palace courtyard festooned
with decapitated heads. But what chiefly tended to consolidate his power
was the treasure which he ceaselessly amassed by every means. He never
struck for the mere pleasure of striking, and the numerous victims of his
proscriptions only perished to enrich him. His death sentences always fell
on beys and wealthy persons whom he wished to plunder. In his eyes the
axe was but an instrument of fortune, and the executioner a tax-gatherer.
19
Chapter 3
Having governed Thessaly in this manner during several years, Ali found
himself in a position to acquire the province of Janina, the possession of
which, by making him master of Epirus, would enable him to crush all his
enemies and to reign supreme over the three divisions of Albania.
But before he could succeed in this, it was necessary to dispose of the pacha
already in possession. Fortunately for Ali, the latter was a weak and indolent
man, quite incapable of struggling against so formidable a rival; and his
enemy speedily conceived and put into execution a plan intended to bring
about the fulfilment of his desires. He came to terms with the same
Armatolians whom he had formerly treated so harshly, and let them loose,
provided with arms and ammunition, on the country which he wished to
obtain. Soon the whole region echoed with stories of devastation and pillage.
The pacha, unable to repel the incursions of these mountaineers, employed
the few troops he had in oppressing the inhabitants of the plains, who,
groaning under both extortion and rapine, vainly filled the air with their
despairing cries. Ali hoped that the Divan, which usually judged only after
the event, seeing that Epirus lay desolate, while Thessaly flourished under
his own administration, would, before long, entrust himself with the
government of both provinces, when a family incident occurred, which for a
time diverted the course of his political manoeuvres.
For a long time his mother Kamco had suffered from an internal cancer, the
result of a life of depravity. Feeling that her end drew near, she despatched
messenger after messenger, summoning her son to her bedside. He started,
but arrived too late, and found only his sister Chainitza mourning over the
body of their mother, who had expired in her arms an hour previously.
Breathing unutterable rage and pronouncing horrible imprecations against
Heaven, Kamco had commanded her children, under pain of her dying
curse, to carry out her last wishes faithfully. After having long given way to
their grief, Ali and Chainitza read together the document which contained
these commands. It ordained some special assassinations, mentioned
sundry villages which, some day, were to be given to the flames, but ordered
them most especially, as soon as possible, to exterminate the inhabitants of
Kormovo and Kardiki, from whom she had endured the last horrors of
slavery.
20
Then, after advising her children to remain united, to enrich their soldiers,
and to count as nothing people who were useless to them, Kamco ended by
commanding them to send in her name a pilgrim to Mecca, who should
deposit an offering on the tomb of the Prophet for the repose of her soul.
Having perused these last injunctions, Ali and Chainitza joined hands, and
over the inanimate remains of their departed mother swore to accomplish
her dying behests.
The pilgrimage came first under consideration. Now a pilgrim can only be
sent as proxy to Mecca, or offerings be made at the tomb of Medina, at the
expense of legitimately acquired property duly sold for the purpose. The
brother and sister made a careful examination of the family estates, and
after long hunting, thought they had found the correct thing in a small
property of about fifteen hundred francs income, inherited from their great-
grandfather, founder of the Tepel-Enian dynasty. But further investigations
disclosed that even this last resource had been forcibly taken from a
Christian, and the idea of a pious pilgrimage and a sacred offering had to be
given up. They then agreed to atone for the impossibility of expiation by the
grandeur of their vengeance, and swore to pursue without ceasing and to
destroy without mercy all enemies of their family.
The best mode of carrying out this terrible and self-given pledge was that Ali
should resume his plans of aggrandizement exactly where he had left them.
He succeeded in acquiring the pachalik of Janina, which was granted him
by the Porte under the title of "arpalik," or conquest. It was an old custom,
natural to the warlike habits of the Turks, to bestow the Government
provinces or towns affecting to despise the authority of the Grand Seigneur
or whomsoever succeeded in controlling them, and Janina occupied this
position. It was principally inhabited by Albanians, who had an enthusiastic
admiration for anarchy, dignified by them with the name of "Liberty," and
who thought themselves independent in proportion to the disturbance they
succeeded in making. Each lived retired as if in a mountain castle, and only
went out in order to participate in the quarrels of his faction in the forum.
As for the pachas, they were relegated to the old castle on the lake, and
there was no difficulty in obtaining their recall.
21
Consequently there was a general outcry at the news of Ali Pacha's
nomination, and it was unanimously agreed that a man whose character
and power were alike dreaded must not be admitted within the walls of
Janina. Ali, not choosing to risk his forces in an open battle with a warlike
population, and preferring a slower and safer way to a short and dangerous
one, began by pillaging the villages and farms belonging to his most
powerful opponents. His tactics succeeded, and the very persons who had
been foremost in vowing hatred to the son of Kamco and who had sworn
most loudly that they would die rather than submit to the tyrant, seeing
their property daily ravaged, and impending ruin if hostilities continued,
applied themselves to procure peace. Messengers were sent secretly to Ali,
offering to admit him into Janina if he would undertake to respect the lives
and property of his new allies. Ali promised whatever they asked, and
entered the town by night. His first proceeding was to appear before the
cadi, whom he compelled to register and proclaim his firmans of investiture.
In the same year in which he arrived at this dignity, really the desire and
object of Ali's whole life, occurred also the death of the Sultan Abdul Hamid,
whose two sons, Mustapha and Mahmoud, were confined in the Old
Seraglio. This change of rulers, however, made no difference to Ali; the
peaceful Selim, exchanging the prison to which his nephews were now
relegated, for the throne of their father, confirmed the Pacha of Janina in the
titles, offices, and privileges which had been conferred on him.
Established in his position by this double investiture, Ali applied himself to
the definite settlement of his claims. He was now fifty years of age, and was
at the height of his intellectual development: experience had been his
teacher, and the lesson of no single event had been lost upon him. An
uncultivated but just and penetrating mind enabled him to comprehend
facts, analyse causes, and anticipate results; and as his heart never
interfered with the deductions of his rough intelligence, he had by a sort of
logical sequence formulated an inflexible plan of action. This man, wholly
ignorant, not only of the ideas of history but also of the great names of
Europe, had succeeded in divining, and as a natural consequence of his
active and practical character, in also realising Macchiavelli, as is amply
shown in the expansion of his greatness and the exercise of his power.
Without faith in God, despising men, loving and thinking only of himself,
distrusting all around him, audacious in design, immovable in resolution,
inexorable in execution, merciless in vengeance, by turns insolent, humble,
violent, or supple according to circumstances, always and entirely logical in
22
his egotism, he is Cesar Borgia reborn as a Mussulman; he is the incarnate
ideal of Florentine policy, the Italian prince converted into a satrap.
Age had as yet in no way impaired Ali's strength and activity, and nothing
prevented his profiting by the advantages of his position. Already possessing
great riches, which every day he saw increasing under his management, he
maintained a large body of warlike and devoted troops, he united the offices
of Pacha of two tails of Janina, of Toparch of Thessaly, and of Provost
Marshal of the Highway. As influential aids both to his reputation for
general ability and the terror of his arms, and his authority as ruler, there
stood by his side two sons, Mouktar and Veli, offspring of his wife Emineh,
both fully grown and carefully educated in the principles of their father.
Ali's first care, once master of Janina, was to annihilate the beys forming the
aristocracy of the place, whose hatred he was well aware of, and whose plots
he dreaded. He ruined them all, banishing many and putting others to
death. Knowing that he must make friends to supply the vacancy caused by
the destruction of his foes, he enriched with the spoil the Albanian
mountaineers in his pay, known by the name of Skipetars, on whom he
conferred most of the vacant employments. But much too prudent to allow
all the power to fall into the hands of a single caste, although a foreign one
to the capital, he, by a singular innovation, added to and mixed with them
an infusion of Orthodox Greeks, a skilful but despised race, whose talents
he could use without having to dread their influence. While thus
endeavouring on one side to destroy the power of his enemies by depriving
them of both authority and wealth, and on the other to consolidate his own
by establishing a firm administration, he neglected no means of acquiring
popularity. A fervent disciple of Mahomet when among fanatic Mussulmans,
a materialist with the Bektagis who professed a rude pantheism, a Christian
among the Greeks, with whom he drank to the health of the Holy Virgin, he
made everywhere partisans by flattering the idea most in vogue. But if he
constantly changed both opinions and language when dealing with
subordinates whom it was desirable to win over, Ali towards his superiors
had one only line of conduct which he never transgressed. Obsequious
towards the Sublime Porte, so long as it did not interfere with his private
authority, he not only paid with exactitude all dues to the sultan, to whom
he even often advanced money, but he also pensioned the most influential
ministers. He was bent on having no enemies who could really injure his
power, and he knew that in an absolute government no conviction can hold
its own against the power of gold.
23
Having thus annihilated the nobles, deceived the multitude with plausible
words, and lulled to sleep the watchfulness of the Divan, Ali resolved to turn
his arms against Kormovo. At the foot of its rocks he had, in youth,
experienced the disgrace of defeat, and during thirty nights Kamco and
Chainitza had endured all horrors of outrage at the hands of its warriors.
Thus the implacable pacha had a twofold wrong to punish, a double
vengeance to exact.
This time, profiting by experience, he called in the aid of treachery. Arrived
at the citadel, he negotiated, promised an amnesty, forgiveness for all,
actual rewards for some. The inhabitants, only too happy to make peace
with so formidable an adversary, demanded and obtained a truce to settle
the conditions. This was exactly what Ali expected, and Kormovo, sleeping
on the faith of the treaty, was suddenly attacked and taken. All who did not
escape by flight perished by the sword in the darkness, or by the hand of the
executioner the next morning. Those who had offered violence aforetime to
Ali's mother and sister were carefully sought for, and whether convicted or
merely accused, were impaled on spits, torn with redhot pincers, and slowly
roasted between two fires; the women were shaved and publicly scourged,
and then sold as slaves.
This vengeance, in which all the nobles of the province not yet entirely
ruined were compelled to assist, was worth a decisive victory to Ali. Towns,
cantons, whole districts, overwhelmed with terror, submitted without
striking a blow, and his name, joined to the recital of a massacre which
ranked as a glorious exploit in the eyes of this savage people, echoed like
thunder from valley to valley and mountain to mountain. In order that all
surrounding him might participate in the joy of his success Ali gave his
army a splendid festival. Of unrivalled activity, and, Mohammedan only in
name, he himself led the chorus in the Pyrrhic and Klephtic dances, the
ceremonials of warriors and of robbers. There was no lack of wine, of sheep,
goats, and lambs roasted before enormous fires; made of the debris of the
ruined city; antique games of archery and wrestling were celebrated, and the
victors received their prizes from the hand of their chief. The plunder,
slaves, and cattle were then shared, and the Tapygae, considered as the
lowest of the four tribes composing the race of Skipetars, and ranking as the
refuse of the army, carried off into the mountains of Acroceraunia, doors,
windows, nails, and even the tiles of the houses, which were then all
surrendered to the flames.
24
However, Ibrahim, the successor and son-in-law of Kurd Pacha, could not
see with indifference part of his province invaded by his ambitious
neighbour. He complained and negotiated, but obtaining no satisfaction,
called out an army composed of Skipetars of Toxid, all Islamites, and gave
the command to his brother Sepher, Bey of Avlone. Ali, who had adopted the
policy of opposing alternately the Cross to the Crescent and the Crescent to
the Cross, summoned to his aid the Christian chiefs of the mountains, who
descended into the plains at the head of their unconquered troops. As is
generally the case in Albania, where war is merely an excuse for brigandage,
instead of deciding matters by a pitched battle, both sides contented
themselves with burning villages, hanging peasants, and carrying off cattle.
Also, in accordance with the custom of the country, the women interposed
between the combatants, and the good and gentle Emineh laid proposals of
peace before Ibrahim Pacha, to whose apathetic disposition a state of war
was disagreeable, and who was only too happy to conclude a fairly
satisfactory negotiation. A family alliance was arranged, in virtue of which
Ali retained his conquests, which were considered as the marriage portion of
Ibrahim's eldest daughter, who became the wife of Ali's eldest son, Mouktar.
It was hoped that this peace might prove permanent, but the marriage
which sealed the treaty was barely concluded before a fresh quarrel broke
out between the pachas. Ali, having wrung such important concessions from
the weakness of his neighbour, desired to obtain yet more. But closely allied
to Ibrahim were two persons gifted with great firmness of character and
unusual ability, whose position gave them great influence. They were his
wife Zaidee, and his brother Sepher, who had been in command during the
war just terminated. As both were inimical to Ali, who could not hope to
corrupt them, he latter resolved to get rid of them.
Having in the days of his youth been intimate with Kurd Pacha, Ali had
endeavoured to seduce his daughter, already the wife of Ibrahim. Being
discovered by the latter in the act of scaling the wall of his harem, he had
been obliged to fly the country. Wishing now to ruin the woman whom he
had formerly tried to corrupt, Ali sought to turn his former crime to the
success of a new one. Anonymous letters, secretly sent to Ibrahim, warned
him that his wife intended to poison him, in order to be able later to marry
25
Ali Pacha, whom she had always loved. In a country like Turkey, where to
suspect a woman is to accuse her, and accusation is synonymous with
condemnation, such a calumny might easily cause the death of the innocent
Zaidee. But if Ibrahim was weak and indolent, he was also confiding and
generous. He took the letters to his wife, who had no difficulty in clearing
herself, and who warned him against the writer, whose object and plots she
easily divined, so that this odious conspiracy turned only to Ali's discredit.
But the latter was not likely either to concern himself as to what others said
or thought about him or to be disconcerted by a failure. He simply turned
his machinations against his other enemy, and arranged matters this time
so as to avoid a failure.
He sent to Zagori, a district noted for its doctors, for a quack who undertook
to poison Sepher Bey on condition of receiving forty purses. When all was
settled, the miscreant set out for Berat, and was immediately accused by Ali
of evasion, and his wife and children were arrested as accomplices and
detained, apparently as hostages for the good behaviour of their husband
and father, but really as pledges for his silence when the crime should have
been accomplished. Sepher Bey, informed of this by letters which Ali wrote
to the Pacha of Berat demanding the fugitive, thought that a man
persecuted by his enemy would be faithful to himself, and took the
supposed runaway into his service. The traitor made skilful use of the
kindness of his too credulous protector, insinuated himself into his
confidence, became his trusted physician and apothecary, and gave him
poison instead of medicine on the very first appearance of indisposition. As
soon as symptoms of death appeared, the poisoner fled, aided by the
emissaries of Ali, with whom the court of Berat was packed, and presented
himself at Janina to receive the reward of his crime. Ali thanked him for his
zeal, commended his skill, and referred him to the treasurer. But the instant
the wretch left the seraglio in order to receive his recompense, he was seized
by the executioners and hurried to the gallows. In thus punishing the
assassin, Ali at one blow discharged the debt he owed him, disposed of the
single witness to be dreaded, and displayed his own friendship for the
victim! Not content with this, he endeavoured to again throw suspicion on
the wife of Ibrahim Pacha, whom he accused of being jealous of the
influence which Sepher Pacha had exercised in the family. This he
mentioned regularly in conversation, writing in the same style to his agents
at Constantinople, and everywhere where there was any profit in slandering
a family whose ruin he desired for the sake of their possessions. Before long
he made a pretext out of the scandal started by himself, and prepared to
take up arms in order, he said, to avenge his friend Sepher Bey, when he
26
was anticipated by Ibrahim Pacha, who roused against him the allied
Christians of Thesprotia, foremost among whom ranked the Suliots famed
through Albania for their courage and their love of independence.
After several battles, in which his enemies had the advantage, Ali began
negotiations with Ibrahim, and finally concluded a treaty offensive and
defensive. This fresh alliance was, like the first, to be cemented by a
marriage. The virtuous Emineh, seeing her son Veli united to the second
daughter of Ibrahim, trusted that the feud between the two families was now
quenched, and thought herself at the summit of happiness. But her joy was
not of long duration; the death-groan was again to be heard amidst the
songs of the marriage-feast.
The daughter of Chainitza, by her first husband, Ali had married a certain
Murad, the Bey of Clerisoura. This nobleman, attached to Ibrahim Pacha by
both blood and affection, since the death of Sepher Bey, had, become the
special object of Ali's hatred, caused by the devotion of Murad to his patron,
over whom he had great influence, and from whom nothing could detach
him. Skilful in concealing truth under special pretexts, Ali gave out that the
cause of his known dislike to this young man was that the latter, although
his nephew by marriage, had several times fought in hostile ranks against
him. Therefore the amiable Ibrahim made use of the marriage treaty to
arrange an honourable reconciliation between Murad Bey and his uncle,
and appointed the former "Ruler of the Marriage Feast," in which capacity he
was charged to conduct the bride to Janina and deliver her to her husband,
the young Veli Bey. He had accomplished his mission satisfactorily, and was
received by Ali with all apparent hospitality. The festival began on his arrival
towards the end of November 1791, and had already continued several days,
when suddenly it was announced that a shot had been fired upon Ali, who
had only escaped by a miracle, and that the assassin was still at large. This
news spread terror through the city and the palace, and everyone dreaded
being seized as the guilty person. Spies were everywhere employed, but they
declared search was useless, and that there must be an extensive
conspiracy against Ali's life. The latter complained of being surrounded by
enemies, and announced that henceforth he would receive only one person
at a time, who should lay down his arms before entering the hall now set
apart for public audience. It was a chamber built over a vault, and entered
by a sort of trap-door, only reached by a ladder.
27
After having for several days received his couriers in this sort of dovecot, Ali
summoned his nephew in order to entrust with him the wedding gifts.
Murad took this as a sign of favour, and joyfully acknowledged the
congratulations of his friends. He presented himself at the time arranged;
the guards at the foot of the ladder demanded his arms, which he gave up
readily, and ascended the ladder full of hope. Scarcely had the trap-door
closed behind him when a pistol ball, fired from a dark corner, broke his
shoulder blade, and he fell, but sprang up and attempted to fly. Ali issued
from his hiding place and sprang upon him, but notwithstanding his wound
the young bey defended himself vigorously, uttering terrible cries. The
pacha, eager to finish, and finding his hands insufficient, caught a burning
log from the hearth, struck his nephew in the face with it, felled him to the
ground, and completed his bloody task. This accomplished, Ali called for
help with loud cries, and when his guards entered he showed the bruises he
had received and the blood with which he was covered, declaring that he
had killed in self-defence a villain who endeavoured to assassinate him. He
ordered the body to be searched, and a letter was found in a pocket which
Ali had himself just placed there, which purported to give the details of the
pretended conspiracy.
As Murad's brother was seriously compromised by this letter, he also was
immediately seized, and strangled without any pretence of trial. The whole
palace rejoiced, thanks were rendered to Heaven by one of those sacrifices of
animals still occasionally made in the East to celebrate an escape from great
danger, and Ali released some prisoners in order to show his gratitude to
Providence for having protected him from so horrible a crime. He received
congratulatory visits, and composed an apology attested by a judicial
declaration by the cadi, in which the memory of Murad and his brother was
declared accursed. Finally, commissioners, escorted by a strong body of
soldiers, were sent to seize the property of the two brothers, because, said
the decree, it was just that the injured should inherit the possessions of his
would-be assassins.
Thus was exterminated the only family capable of opposing the Pacha of
Janina, or which could counterbalance his influence over the weak Ibrahim
of Berat. The latter, abandoned by his brave defenders, and finding himself
at the mercy of his enemy, was compelled to submit to what he could not
prevent, and protested only by tears against these crimes, which seemed to
herald a terrible future for himself.
28
As for Emineh, it is said that from the date of this catastrophe she separated
herself almost entirely from her blood-stained husband, and spent her life in
the recesses of the harem, praying as a Christian both for the murderer and
his victims. It is a relief, in the midst of this atrocious saturnalia to
encounter this noble and gentle character, which like a desert oasis, affords
a rest to eyes wearied with the contemplation of so much wickedness and
treachery.
Ali lost in her the guardian angel who alone could in any way restrain his
violent passions. Grieved at first by the withdrawal of the wife whom
hitherto he had loved exclusively, he endeavoured in vain to regain her
affection; and then sought in new vices compensation for the happiness he
had lost, and gave himself up to sensuality. Ardent in everything, he carried
debauchery to a monstrous extent, and as if his palaces were not large
enough for his desires, he assumed various disguises; sometimes in order to
traverse the streets by night in search of the lowest pleasures; sometimes
penetrating by day into churches and private houses seeking for young men
and maidens remarkable for their beauty, who were then carried off to his
harem.
His sons, following in his footsteps, kept also scandalous households, and
seemed to dispute preeminence in evil with their father, each in his own
manner. Drunkenness was the specialty of the eldest, Mouktar, who was
without rival among the hard drinkers of Albania, and who was reputed to
have emptied a whole wine-skin in one evening after a plentiful meal. Gifted
with the hereditary violence of his family, he had, in his drunken fury, slain
several persons, among others his sword-bearer, the companion of his
childhood and confidential friend of his whole life. Veli chose a different
course. Realising the Marquis de Sade, as his father had realised
Macchiavelli, he delighted in mingling together debauchery and cruelty, and
his amusement consisted in biting the lips he had kissed, and tearing with
his nails the forms he had caressed. The people of Janina saw with horror
more than one woman in their midst whose nose and ears he had caused to
be cut off, and had then turned into the streets.
It was indeed a reign of terror; neither fortune, life, honour, nor family were
safe. Mothers cursed their fruitfulness, and women their beauty. Fear soon
engenders corruption, and subjects are speedily tainted by the depravity of
29
their masters. Ali, considering a demoralised race as easier to govern, looked
on with satisfaction.
While he strengthened by every means his authority from within, he missed
no opportunity of extending his rule without. In 1803 he declared war
against the Suliots, whose independence he had frequently endeavoured
either to purchase or to overthrow. The army sent against them, although
ten thousand strong, was at first beaten everywhere. Ali then, as usual,
brought treason to his aid, and regained the advantage. It became evident
that, sooner or later, the unhappy Suliots must succumb.
Foreseeing the horrors which their defeat would entail, Emineh, touched
with compassion, issued from her seclusion and cast herself at Ali's feet. He
raised her, seated her beside him, and inquired as to her wishes. She spoke
of generosity, of mercy; he listened as if touched and wavering, until she
named the Suliots. Then, filled with fury, he seized a pistol and fired at her.
She was not hurt, but fell to the ground overcome with terror, and her
women hastily intervened and carried her away. For the first time in his life,
perhaps, Ali shuddered before the dread of a murder.
It was his wife, the mother of his children, whom he saw lying at his feet,
and the recollection afflicted and tormented him. He rose in the night and
went to Emineh's apartment; he knocked and called, but being refused
admittance, in his anger he broke open the door. Terrified by the noise; and
at the sight of her infuriated husband, Emineh fell into violent convulsions,
and shortly expired. Thus perished the daughter of Capelan Pacha, wife of
Ali Tepeleni, and mother of Mouktar and Veli, who, doomed to live
surrounded by evil, yet remained virtuous and good.
Her death caused universal mourning throughout Albania, and produced a
not less deep impression on the mind of her murderer. Emineh's spectre
pursued him in his pleasures, in the council chamber, in the hours of night.
He saw her, he heard her, and would awake, exclaiming, "my wife! my wife!--
It is my wife!--Her eyes are angry; she threatens me!--Save me! Mercy!" For
more than ten years Ali never dared to sleep alone.
30
Chapter 4
In December, the Suliots, decimated by battle, worn by famine, discouraged
by treachery, were obliged to capitulate. The treaty gave them leave to go
where they would, their own mountains excepted. The unfortunate tribe
divided into two parts, the one going towards Parga, the other towards
Prevesa. Ali gave orders for the destruction of both, notwithstanding the
treaty.
The Parga division was attacked in its march, and charged by a numerous
body of Skipetars. Its destruction seemed imminent, but instinct suddenly
revealed to the ignorant mountaineers the one manoeuvre which might save
them. They formed a square, placing old men, women, children, and cattle
in the midst, and, protected by this military formation, entered Parga in full
view of the cut-throats sent to pursue them.
Less fortunate was the Prevesa division, which, terrified by a sudden and
unexpected attack, fled in disorder to a Greek convent called Zalongos. But
the gate was soon broken down, and the unhappy Suliots massacred to the
last man.
The women, whose tents had been pitched on the summit of a lofty rock,
beheld the terrible carnage which destroyed their defenders. Henceforth
their only prospect was that of becoming the slaves of those who had just
slaughtered their husbands and brothers. An heroic resolution spared them
this infamy; they joined hands, and chanting their national songs, moved in
a solemn dance round the rocky platform. As the song ended, they uttered a
prolonged and piercing cry, and cast themselves and their children down
into the profound abyss beneath.
There were still some Suliots left in their country when Ali Pacha took
possession of it. These were all taken and brought to Janina, and their
sufferings were the first adornments of the festival made for the army. Every
soldier's imagination was racked for the discovery of new tortures, and the
most original among them had the privilege of themselves carrying out their
inventions.
31
There were some who, having had their noses and ears cut off, were
compelled to eat them raw, dressed as a salad. One young man was scalped
until the skin fell back upon his shoulders, then beaten round the court of
the seraglio for the pacha's entertainment, until at length a lance was run
through his body and he was cast on the funeral pile. Many were boiled alive
and their flesh then thrown to the dogs.
From this time the Cross has disappeared from the Selleid mountains, and
the gentle prayer of Christ no longer wakes the echoes of Suli.
During the course of this war, and shortly after the death of Emineh,
another dismal drama was enacted in the pacha's family, whose active
wickedness nothing seemed to weary. The scandalous libertinism of both
father and sons had corrupted all around as well as themselves. This
demoralisation brought bitter fruits for all alike: the subjects endured a
terrible tyranny; the masters sowed among themselves distrust, discord, and
hatred. The father wounded his two sons by turns in their tenderest
affections, and the sons avenged themselves by abandoning their father in
the hour of danger.
There was in Janina a woman named Euphrosyne, a niece of the
archbishop, married to one of the richest Greek merchants, and noted for
wit and beauty. She was already the mother of two children, when Mouktar
became enamoured of her, and ordered her to come to his palace. The
unhappy Euphrosyne, at once guessing his object, summoned a family
council to decide what should be done. All agreed that there was no escape,
and that her husband's life was in danger, on account of the jealousy of his
terrible rival. He fled the city that same night, and his wife surrendered
herself to Mouktar, who, softened by her charms, soon sincerely loved her,
and overwhelmed her with presents and favours. Things were in this
position when Mouktar was obliged to depart on an important expedition.
Scarcely had he started before his wives complained to Ali that Euphrosyne
usurped their rights and caused their husband to neglect them. Ali, who
complained greatly of his sons' extravagance, and regretted the money they
32
squandered, at once struck a blow which was both to enrich himself and
increase the terror of his name.
One night he appeared by torchlight, accompanied by his guards, at
Euphrosyne's house. Knowing his cruelty and avarice, she sought to disarm
one by gratifying the other: she collected her money and jewels and laid
them at Ali's feet with a look of supplication.
"These things are only my own property, which you restore," said he, taking
possession of the rich offering. "Can you give back the heart of Mouktar,
which you have stolen?"
Euphrosyne besought him by his paternal feelings, for the sake of his son
whose love had been her misfortune and was now her only crime, to spare a
mother whose conduct had been otherwise irreproachable. But her tears
and pleadings produced no effect on Ali, who ordered her to be taken, loaded
with fetters and covered with a piece of sackcloth, to the prison of the
seraglio.
If it were certain that there was no hope for the unhappy Euphrosyne, one
trusted that she might at least be the only victim. But Ali, professing to
follow the advice of some severe reformers who wished to restore decent
morality, arrested at the same time fifteen ladies belonging to the best
Christian families in Janina. A Wallachian, named Nicholas Janco, took the
opportunity to denounce his own wife, who was on the point of becoming a
mother, as guilty of adultery, and handed her also over to the pacha. These
unfortunate women were brought before Ali to undergo a trial of which a
sentence of death was the foregone conclusion. They were then confined in a
dungeon, where they spent two days of misery. The third night, the
executioners appeared to conduct them to the lake where they were to
perish. Euphrosyne, too exhausted to endure to the end, expired by the way,
and when she was flung with the rest into the dark waters, her soul had
already escaped from its earthly tenement. Her body was found the next
day, and was buried in the cemetery of the monastery of Saints-Anargyres,
where her tomb, covered with white iris and sheltered by a wild olive tree, is
yet shown.
33
Mouktar was returning from his expedition when a courier from his brother
Veli brought him a letter informing him of these events. He opened it.
"Euphrosyne!" he cried, and, seizing one of his pistols, fired it at the
messenger, who fell dead at his feet,--"Euphrosyne, behold thy first victim!"
Springing on his horse, he galloped towards Janina. His guards followed at a
distance, and the inhabitants of all the villages he passed fled at his
approach. He paid no attention to them, but rode till his horse fell dead by
the lake which had engulfed Euphrosyne, and then, taking a boat, he went
to hide his grief and rage in his own palace.
Ali, caring little for passion which evaporated in tears and cries, sent an
order to Mouktar to appear before him at once. "He will not kill you," he
remarked to his messenger, with a bitter smile. And, in fact, the man who a
moment before was furiously raging and storming against his father, as if
overwhelmed by this imperious message, calmed down, and obeyed.
"Come hither, Mouktar," said the pacha, extending his murderous hand to
be kissed as soon as his son appeared. "I shall take no notice of your anger,
but in future never forget that a man who braves public opinion as I do fears
nothing in the world. You can go now; when your troops have rested from
their march, you can come and ask for orders. Go, remember what I have
said."
Mouktar retired as submissively as if he had just received pardon for some
serious crime, and found no better consolation than to spend the night with
Veli in drinking and debauchery. But a day was to come when the brothers,
alike outraged by their father, would plot and carry out a terrible vengeance.
However, the Porte began to take umbrage at the continual aggrandisement
of the Pacha of Janina. Not daring openly to attack so formidable a vassal,
the sultan sought by underhand means to diminish his power, and under
the pretext that Ali was becoming too old for the labour of so many offices,
the government of Thessaly was withdrawn from him, but, to show that this
was not done in enmity, the province was entrusted to his nephew, Elmas
Bey, son of Suleiman and Chainitza.
34
Chainitza, fully as ambitious as her brother, could not contain her delight at
the idea of governing in the name of her son, who was weak and gentle in
character and accustomed to obey her implicitly. She asked her brother's
permission to go to Trikala to be present at the installation, and obtained it,
to everybody's astonishment; for no one could imagine that Ali would
peacefully renounce so important a government as that of Thessaly.
However, he dissembled so skilfully that everyone was deceived by his
apparent resignation, and applauded his magnanimity, when he provided
his sister with a brilliant escort to conduct her to the capital of the province
of which he had just been deprived in favour of his nephew. He sent letters
of congratulation to the latter as well as magnificent presents, among them
a splendid pelisse of black fox, which had cost more than a hundred
thousand francs of Western money. He requested Elmas Bey to honour him
by wearing this robe on the day when the sultan's envoy should present him
with the firman of investiture, and Chainitza herself was charged to deliver
both gifts and messages.
Chainitza arrived safely at Trikala, and faithfully delivered the messages
with which she had been entrusted. When the ceremony she so ardently
desired took place, she herself took charge of all the arrangements. Elmas,
wearing the black fox pelisse, was proclaimed, and acknowledged as
Governor of Thessaly in her presence. "My son is pacha!" she cried in the
delirium of joy. "My son is pacha! and my nephews will die of envy!" But her
triumph was not to be of long duration. A few days after his installation,
Elmas began to feel strangely languid. Continual lethargy, convulsive
sneezing, feverish eyes, soon betokened a serious illness. Ali's gift had
accomplished its purpose. The pelisse, carefully impregnated with smallpox
germs taken from a young girl suffering from this malady, had conveyed the
dreaded disease to the new pacha, who, not having been inoculated, died in
a few days.
The grief of Chainitza at her son's death displayed itself in sobs, threats, and
curses, but, not knowing whom to blame for her misfortune, she hastened to
leave the scene of it, and returned to Janina, to mingle her tears with those
of her brother. She found Ali apparently in such depths of grief, that instead
of suspecting, she was actually tempted to pity him, and this seeming
sympathy soothed her distress, aided by the caresses of her second son,
Aden Bey. Ali, thoughtful of his own interests, took care to send one of his
own officers to Trikala, to administer justice in the place of his deceased
35
nephew, and the Porte, seeing that all attempts against him only caused
misfortune, consented to his resuming the government of Thessaly.
This climax roused the suspicions of many persons. But the public voice,
already discussing the causes of the death of Elmas, was stifled by the
thunder of the cannon, which, from the ramparts of Janina, announced to
Epirus the birth of another son to Ali, Salik Bey, whose mother was a
Georgian slave.
Fortune, seemingly always ready both to crown Ali's crimes with success
and to fulfil his wishes, had yet in reserve a more precious gift than any of
the others, that of a good and beautiful wife who should replace, and even
efface the memory of the beloved Emineh.
The Porte, while sending to Ali the firman which restored to him the
government of Thessaly, ordered him to seek out and destroy a society of
coiners who dwelt within his jurisdiction. Ali, delighted to prove his zeal by a
service which cost nothing but bloodshed, at once set his spies to work, and
having discovered the abode of the gang, set out for the place attended by a
strong escort. It was a village called Plikivitza.
Having arrived in the evening, he spent the night in taking measures to
prevent escape, and at break of day attacked the village suddenly with his
whole force. The coiners were seized in the act. Ali immediately ordered the
chief to be hung at his own door and the whole population to be massacred.
Suddenly a young girl of great beauty made her way through the tumult and
sought refuge at his feet. Ali, astonished, asked who she was. She answered
with a look of mingled innocence and terror, kissing his hands, which she
bathed with tears, and said:
"O my lord! I implore thee to intercede with the terrible vizier Ali for my
mother and brothers. My father is dead, behold where he hangs at the door
of our cottage! But we have done nothing to rouse the anger of our dreadful
master. My mother is a poor woman who never offended anyone, and we are
only weak children. Save us from him!"
36
Touched in spite of himself, the pacha took the girl in his arms, and
answered her with a gentle smile.
"Thou hast come to the wrong man, child: I am this terrible vizier."
"Oh no, no! you are good, you will be our good lord."
"Well, be comforted, my child, and show me thy mother and thy brothers;
they shall be spared. Thou hast saved their lives."
And as she knelt at his feet, overcome with joy, he raised her and asked her
name.
"Basilessa," she replied.
"Basilessa, Queen! it is a name of good augury. Basilessa, thou shalt dwell
with me henceforth."
And he collected the members of her family, and gave orders for them to be
sent to Janina in company with the maiden, who repaid his mercy with
boundless love and devotion.
Let us mention one trait of gratitude shown by Ali at the end of this
expedition, and his record of good deeds is then closed. Compelled by a
storm to take refuge in a miserable hamlet, he inquired its name, and on
hearing it appeared surprised and thoughtful, as if trying to recall lost
memories. Suddenly he asked if a woman named Nouza dwelt in the village,
and was told there was an old infirm woman of that name in great poverty.
He ordered her to be brought before him. She came and prostrated herself in
terror. Ali raised her kindly.
"Dost thou not know me?" he asked.
37
"Have mercy, great Vizier," answered the poor woman, who, having nothing
to lose but her life, imagined that even that would be taken from her.
"I see," said the pacha, "that if thou knowest me, thou dost not really
recognise me."
The woman looked at him wonderingly, not understanding his words in the
least.
"Dost thou remember," continued Ali, "that forty years ago a young man
asked for shelter from the foes who pursued him? Without inquiring his
name or standing, thou didst hide him in thy humble house, and dressed
his wounds, and shared thy scanty food with him, and when he was able to
go forward thou didst stand on thy threshold to wish him good luck and
success. Thy wishes were heard, for the young man was Ali Tepeleni, and I
who speak am he!"
The old woman stood overwhelmed with astonishment. She departed calling
down blessings on the pacha, who assured her a pension of fifteen hundred
francs for the rest of her days.
But these two good actions are only flashes of light illuminating the dark
horizon of Ali's life for a brief moment. Returned to Janina, he resumed his
tyranny, his intrigues, and cruelty. Not content with the vast territory which
owned his sway, he again invaded that of his neighbours on every pretext.
Phocis, Mtolia, Acarnania, were by turns occupied by his troops, the country
ravaged, and the inhabitants decimated. At the same time he compelled
Ibrahim Pacha to surrender his last remaining daughter, and give her in
marriage to his nephew, Aden Bey, the son of Chainitza. This new alliance
with a family he had so often attacked and despoiled gave him fresh arms
against it, whether by being enabled better to watch the pacha's sons, or to
entice them into some snare with greater ease.
38
Whilst he thus married his nephew, he did not neglect the advancement of
his sons. By the aid of the French Ambassador, whom he had convinced of
his devotion to the Emperor Napoleon, he succeeded in getting the pachalik
of Morea bestowed on Veli, and that of Lepanto on Mouktar. But as in
placing his sons in these exalted positions his only aim was to aggrandise
and consolidate his own power, he himself ordered their retinues, giving
them officers of his own choosing. When they departed to their governments,
he kept their wives, their children, and even their furniture as pledges,
saying that they ought not to be encumbered with domestic establishments
in time of war, Turkey just then being at open war with England. He also
made use of this opportunity to get rid of people who displeased him; among
others, of a certain Ismail Pacho Bey, who had been alternately both tool
and enemy, whom he made secretary to his son Veli, professedly as a pledge
of reconciliation and favour, but really in order to despoil him more easily of
the considerable property which he possessed at Janina. Pacho was not
deceived, and showed his resentment openly. "The wretch banishes me," he
cried, pointing out Ali, who was sitting at a window in the palace; "he sends
me away in order to rob me; but I will avenge myself whatever happens, and
I shall die content if I can procure his destruction at the price of my own."
Continually increasing his power, Ali endeavoured to consolidate it
permanently. He had entered by degrees into secret negotiations with all the
great powers of Europe, hoping in the end to make himself independent, and
to obtain recognition as Prince of Greece. A mysterious and unforeseen
incident betrayed this to the Porte, and furnished actual proofs of his
treason in letters confirmed by Ali's own seal. The Sultan Selim immediately
sent to Janina a "kapidgi-bachi," or plenipotentiary, to examine into the case
and try the delinquent.
Arrived at Janina, this officer placed before Ali the proofs of his
understanding with the enemies of the State. Ali was not strong enough to
throw off the mask, and yet could not deny such overwhelming evidence. He
determined to obtain time.
"No wonder," said he, "that I appear guilty in the eyes of His Highness. This
seal is certainly mine; I cannot deny it; but the writing is not that of my
secretaries, and the seal must have been obtained and used to sign these
guilty letters in order to ruin me. I pray you to grant me a few days in order
to clear up this iniquitous mystery, which compromises me in the eyes of my
39
master the sultan and of all good Mahommedans. May Allah grant me the
means of proving my innocence, which is as pure as the rays of the sun,
although everything seems against me!"
After this conference, Ali, pretending to be engaged in a secret inquiry,
considered how he could legally escape from this predicament. He spent
some days in making plans which were given up as soon as formed, until his
fertile genius at length suggested a means of getting clear of one of the
greatest difficulties in which he had ever found himself. Sending for a Greek
whom he had often employed, he addressed him thus:
"Thou knowest I have always shown thee favour, and the day is arrived
when thy fortune shall be made. Henceforth thou shalt be as my son; thy
children shall be as mine; my house shall be thy home, and in return for my
benefits I require one small service. This accursed kapidgi-bachi has come
hither bringing certain papers signed with my seal, intending to use them to
my discredit, and thus to extort money from me. Of money I have already
given too much, and I intend this time to escape without being plundered
except for the sake of a good servant like thee. Therefore, my son, thou shalt
go before the tribunal when I tell thee, and declare before this kapidgi-bachi
and the cadi that thou hast written these letters attributed to me, and that
thou didst seal them with my seal, in order to give them due weight and
importance."
The unhappy Greek grew pale and strove to answer.
"What fearest thou, my son?" resumed Ali. "Speak, am I not thy good
master? Thou wilt be sure of my lasting favour, and who is there to dread
when I protect thee? Is it the kapidgi-bachi? he has no authority here. I have
thrown twenty as good as he into the lake! If more is required to reassure
thee, I swear by the Prophet, by my own and my sons' heads, that no harm
shall come to thee from him. Be ready, then, to do as I tell thee, and beware
of mentioning this matter to anyone, in order that all may be accomplished
according to our mutual wishes."
More terrified by dread of the pacha, from whose wrath in case of refusal
there was no chance of escape, than tempted by his promises, the Greek
40
undertook the false swearing required. Ali, delighted, dismissed him with a
thousand assurances of protection, and then requested the presence of the
sultan's envoy, to whom he said, with much emotion:
"I have at length unravelled the infernal plot laid against me; it is the work
of a man in the pay of the implacable enemies of the Sublime Porte, and who
is a Russian agent. He is in my power, and I have given him hopes of pardon
on condition of full confession. Will you then summon the cadi, the judges
and ecclesiastics of the town, in order that they may hear the guilty man's
deposition, and that the light of truth may purify their minds?"
The tribunal was soon assembled, and the trembling Greek appeared in the
midst of a solemn silence. "Knowest thou this writing?" demanded the cadi.-
-"It is mine."--"And this seal?"--"It is that of my master, Ali Pacha."--"How
does it come to be placed at the foot of these letters?"--"I did this by order of
my chief, abusing the confidence of my master, who occasionally allowed me
to use it to sign his orders."--"It is enough: thou canst withdraw."
Uneasy as to the success of his intrigue, Ali was approaching the Hall of
Justice. As he entered the court, the Greek, who had just finished his
examination, threw himself at his feet, assuring him that all had gone well.
"It is good," said Ali; "thou shalt have thy reward." Turning round, he made
a sign to his guards, who had their orders, and who instantly seized the
unhappy Greek, and, drowning his voice with their shouts, hung him in the
courtyard. This execution finished, the pacha presented himself before the
judges and inquired the result of their investigation. He was answered by a
burst of congratulation. "Well," said he, "the guilty author of this plot aimed
at me is no more; I ordered him to be hung without waiting to hear your
decision. May all enemies of our glorious sultan perish even as he!"
A report of what had occurred was immediately drawn up, and, to assist
matters still further, Ali sent the kapidgi-bachi a gift of fifty purses, which
he accepted without difficulty, and also secured the favour of the Divan by
considerable presents. The sultan, yielding to the advice of his councillors,
appeared to have again received him into favour.
41
But Ali knew well that this appearance of sunshine was entirely deceptive,
and that Selim only professed to believe in his innocence until the day
should arrive when the sultan could safely punish his treason. He sought
therefore to compass the latter's downfall, and made common cause with his
enemies, both internal and external. A conspiracy, hatched between the
discontented pachas and the English agents, shortly broke out, and one
day, when Ali was presiding at the artillery practice of some French gunners
sent to Albania by the Governor of Illyria, a Tartar brought him news of the
deposition of Selim, who was succeeded by his nephew Mustapha. Ali
sprang up in delight, and publicly thanked Allah for this great good fortune.
He really did profit by this change of rulers, but he profited yet more by a
second revolution which caused the deaths both of Selim, whom the
promoters wished to reestablish on the throne, and of Mustapha, whose
downfall they intended. Mahmoud II, who was next invested with the
scimitar of Othman, came to the throne in troublous times, after much
bloodshed, in the midst of great political upheavals, and had neither the will
nor the power to attack one of his most powerful vassals. He received with
evident satisfaction the million piastres which, at his installation, Ali
hastened to send as a proof of his devotion, assured the pacha of his favour,
and confirmed both him and his sons in their offices and dignities. This
fortunate change in his position brought Ali's pride and audacity to a
climax. Free from pressing anxiety, he determined to carry out a project
which had been the dream of his life.
42
Chapter 5
After taking possession of Argyro-Castron, which he had long coveted, Ali
led his victorious army against the town of Kardiki, whose inhabitants had
formerly joined with those of Kormovo in the outrage inflicted on his mother
and sister. The besieged, knowing they had no mercy to hope for, defended
themselves bravely, but were obliged to yield to famine. After a month's
blockade, the common people, having no food for themselves or their cattle,
began to cry for mercy in the open streets, and their chiefs, intimidated by
the general misery and unable to stand alone, consented to capitulate. Ali,
whose intentions as to the fate of this unhappy town were irrevocably
decided, agreed to all that they asked. A treaty was signed by both parties,
and solemnly sworn to on the Koran, in virtue of which seventy-two beys,
heads of the principal Albanian families, were to go to Janina as free men,
and fully armed. They were to be received with the honours due to their
rank as free tenants of the sultan, their lives and their families were to be
spared, and also their possessions. The other inhabitants of Kardiki, being
Mohammedans, and therefore brothers of Ali, were to be treated as friends
and retain their lives and property. On these conditions a quarter of the
town; was to be occupied by the victorious troops.
One of the principal chiefs, Saleh Bey, and his wife, foreseeing the fate
which awaited their friends, committed suicide at the moment when, in
pursuance of the treaty, Ali's soldiers took possession of the quarter
assigned to them.
Ali received the seventy-two beys with all marks of friendship when they
arrived at Janina. He lodged them in a palace on the lake, and treated them
magnificently for some days. But soon, having contrived on some pretext to
disarm them, he had them conveyed, loaded with chains, to a Greek convent
on an island in the lake, which was converted into a prison. The day of
vengeance not having fully arrived, he explained this breach of faith by
declaring that the hostages had attempted to escape.
The popular credulity was satisfied by this explanation, and no one doubted
the good faith of the pacha when he announced that he was going to Kardiki
to establish a police and fulfil the promises he had made to the inhabitants.
43
Even the number of soldiers he took excited no surprise, as Ali was
accustomed to travel with a very numerous suite.
After three days' journey, he stopped at Libokhovo, where his sister had
resided since the death of Aden Bey, her second son, cut off recently by
wickness. What passed in the long interview they had no one knew, but it
was observed that Chainitza's tears, which till then had flowed incessantly,
stopped as if by magic, and her women, who were wearing mourning,
received an order to attire themselves as for a festival. Feasting and dancing,
begun in Ali's honour, did not cease after his departure.
He spent the night at Chenderia, a castle built on a rock, whence the town
of Kardiki was plainly visible. Next day at daybreak Ali despatched an usher
to summon all the male inhabitants of Kardiki to appear before Chenderia,
in order to receive assurances of the pacha's pardon and friendship.
The Kardikiotes at once divined that this injunction was the precursor of a
terrible vengeance: the whole town echoed with cries and groans, the
mosques were filled with people praying for deliverance. The appointed time
arrived, they embraced each other as if parting for ever, and then the men,
unarmed, in number six hundred and seventy, started for Chenderia. At the
gate of the town they encountered a troop of Albanians, who followed as if to
escort them, and which increased in number as they proceeded. Soon they
arrived in the dread presence of Ali Pacha. Grouped in formidable masses
around him stood several thousand of his fierce soldiery.
The unhappy Kardikiotes realised their utter helplessness, and saw that
they, their wives and children, were completely at the mercy of their
implacable enemy. They fell prostrate before the pacha, and with all the
fervour which the utmost terror could inspire, implored him to grant them a
generous pardon.
Ali for some time silently enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his ancient enemies
lying before him prostrate in the dust. He then desired them to rise,
reassured them, called them brothers, sons, friends of his heart.
Distinguishing some of his old acquaintances, he called them to him, spoke
44
familiarly of the days of their youth, of their games, their early friendships,
and pointing to the young men, said, with tears in his eyes,
"The discord which has divided us for so many years has allowed children
not born at the time of our dissension to grow into men. I have lost the
pleasure of watching the development of the off-spring of my neighbours and
the early friends of my youth, and of bestowing benefits on them, but I hope
shortly to repair the natural results of our melancholy divisions."
He then made them splendid promises, and ordered them to assemble in a
neighbouring caravanserai, where he wished to give them a banquet in proof
of reconciliation. Passing from the depths of despair to transports of joy, the
Kardikiotes repaired gaily to the caravanserai, heaping blessings on the
pacha, and blaming each other for having ever doubted his good faith.
Ali was carried down from Chenderia in a litter, attended by his courtiers,
who celebrated his clemency in pompous speeches, to which he replied with
gracious smiles. At the foot of the steep descent he mounted his horse, and,
followed by his troops, rode towards the caravanserai. Alone, and in silence,
he rode twice round it, then, returning to the gate, which had just been
closed by his order, he pulled up his horse, and, signing to his own
bodyguard to attack the building, "Slay them!" he cried in a voice of thunder.
The guards remained motionless in surprise and horror, then as the pacha,
with a roar, repeated his order, they indignantly flung down their arms. In
vain he harangued, flattered, or threatened them; some preserved a sullen
silence, others ventured to demand mercy. Then he ordered them away, and,
calling on the Christian Mirdites who served under his banner.
"To you, brave Latins," he cried, "I will now entrust the duty of exterminating
the foes of my race. Avenge me, and I will reward you magnificently."
A confused murmur rose from the ranks. Ali imagined they were consulting
as to what recompense should be required as the price of such deed.
45
"Speak," said he; "I am ready to listen to your demands and to satisfy them."
Then the Mirdite leader came forward and threw back the hood of his black
cloak.
"O Pacha!" said he, looking Ali boldly in the face, "thy words are an insult;
the Mirdites do not slaughter unarmed prisoners in cold blood. Release the
Kardikiotes, give them arms, and we will fight them to the death; but we
serve thee as soldiers and not as executioners."
At these words; which the black-cloaked battalion received with applause,
Ali thought himself betrayed, and looked around with doubt and mistrust.
Fear was nearly taking the place of mercy, words of pardon were on his lips,
when a certain Athanasius Vaya, a Greek schismatic, and a favourite of the
pacha's, whose illegitimate son he was supposed to be, advanced at the
head of the scum of the army, and offered to carry out the death sentence.
Ali applauded his zeal, gave him full authority to act, and spurred his horse
to the top of a neighbouring hill, the better to enjoy the spectacle. The
Christian Mirdites and the Mohammedan guards knelt together to pray for
the miserable Kardikiotes, whose last hour had come.
The caravanserai where they were shut in was a square enclosure, open to
the sky, and intended to shelter herds of buffaloes. The prisoners having
heard nothing of what passed outside, were astonished to behold
Athanasius Vaya and his troop appearing on the top of the wall. They did
not long remain in doubt. Ali gave the signal by a pistol-shot, and a general
fusillade followed. Terrible cries echoed from the court; the prisoners,
terrified, wounded, crowded one upon another for shelter. Some ran
frantically hither and thither in this enclosure with no shelter and no exit,
until they fell, struck down by bullets. Some tried to climb the walls, in hope
of either escape or vengeance, only to be flung back by either scimitars or
muskets. It was a terrible scene of despair and death.
After an hour of firing, a gloomy silence descended on the place, now
occupied solely by a heap of corpses. Ali forbade any burial rites on pain of
death, and placed over the gate an inscription in letters of gold, informing
46
posterity that six hundred Kardikiotes had there been sacrificed to the
memory of his mother Kamco.
When the shrieks of death ceased in the enclosure, they began to be heard
in the town. The assassins spread themselves through it, and having
violated the women and children, gathered them into a crowd to be driven to
Libokovo. At every halt in this frightful journey fresh marauders fell on the
wretched victims, claiming their share in cruelty and debauchery. At length
they arrived at their destination, where the triumphant and implacable
Chainitza awaited them. As after the taking of Kormovo, she compelled the
women to cut off their hair and to stuff with it a mattress on which she lay.
She then stripped them, and joyfully narrated to them the massacre of their
husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, and when she had sufficiently
enjoyed their misery they were again handed over to the insults of the
soldiery. Chainitza finally published an edict forbidding either clothes,
shelter, or food to be given to the women and children of Kardiki, who were
then driven forth into the woods either to die of hunger or to be devoured by
wild beasts. As to the seventy-two hostages, Ali put them all to death when
he returned to Janina. His vengeance was indeed complete.
But as, filled with a horrible satisfaction, the pacha was enjoying the repose
of a satiated tiger, an indignant and threatening voice reached him even in
the recesses of his palace. The Sheik Yussuf, governor of the castle of
Janina, venerated as a saint by the Mohammedans on account of his piety,
and universally beloved and respected for his many virtues, entered Ali's
sumptuous dwelling for the first time. The guards on beholding him
remained stupefied and motionless, then the most devout prostrated
themselves, while others went to inform the pacha; but no one dared hinder
the venerable man, who walked calmly and solemnly through the astonished
attendants. For him there existed no antechamber, no delay; disdaining the
ordinary forms of etiquette, he paced slowly through the various
apartments, until, with no usher to announce him, he reached that of Ali.
The latter, whose impiety by no means saved him from superstitious terrors,
rose hastily from the divan and advanced to meet the holy sheik, who was
followed by a crowd of silent courtiers. Ali addressed him with the utmost
respect, and endeavoured even to kiss his right hand. Yussuf hastily
withdrew it, covered it with his mantle, and signed to the pacha to seat
himself. Ali mechanically obeyed, and waited in solemn silence to hear the
reason of this unexpected visit.
47
Yussuf desired him to listen with all attention, and then reproached him for
his injustice and rapine, his treachery and cruelty, with such vivid
eloquence that his hearers dissolved in tears. Ali, though much dejected,
alone preserved his equanimity, until at length the sheik accused him of
having caused the death of Emineh. He then grew pale, and rising, cried
with terror:
"Alas! my father, whose name do you now pronounce? Pray for me, or at
least do not sink me to Gehenna with your curses!"
"There is no need to curse thee," answered Yussuf. "Thine own crimes bear
witness against thee. Allah has heard their cry. He will summon thee, judge
thee, and punish thee eternally. Tremble, for the time is at hand! Thine hour
is coming--is coming--is coming!"
Casting a terrible glance at the pacha, the holy man turned his back on him,
and stalked out of the apartment without another word.
Ali, in terror, demanded a thousand pieces of gold, put them in a white satin
purse, and himself hastened with them to overtake the sheik, imploring him
to recall his threats. But Yussuf deigned no answer, and arrived at the
threshold of the palace, shook off the dust of his feet against it.
Ali returned to his apartment sad and downcast, and many days elapsed
before he could shake off the depression caused by this scene. But soon he
felt more ashamed of his inaction than of the reproaches which had caused
it, and on the first opportunity resumed his usual mode of life.
The occasion was the marriage of Moustai, Pacha of Scodra, with the eldest
daughter of Veli Pacha, called the Princess of Aulis, because she had for
dowry whole villages in that district. Immediately after the announcement of
this marriage Ali set on foot a sort of saturnalia, about the details of which
there seemed to be as much mystery as if he had been preparing an
assassination.
48
All at once, as if by a sudden inundation, the very scum of the earth
appeared to spread over Janina. The populace, as if trying to drown their
misery, plunged into a drunkenness which simulated pleasure. Disorderly
bands of mountebanks from the depths of Roumelia traversed the streets,
the bazaars and public places; flocks and herds, with fleeces dyed scarlet,
and gilded horns, were seen on all the roads driven to the court by peasants
under the guidance of their priests. Bishops, abbots, ecclesiastics generally,
were compelled to drink, and to take part in ridiculous and indecent dances,
Ali apparently thinking to raise himself by degrading his more respectable
subjects. Day and night these spectacles succeeded each other with
increasing rapidity, the air resounded with firing, songs, cries, music, and
the roaring of wild beasts in shows. Enormous spits, loaded with meat,
smoked before huge braziers, and wine ran in floods at tables prepared in
the palace courts. Troops of brutal soldiers drove workmen from their labour
with whips, and compelled them to join in the entertainments; dirty and
impudent jugglers invaded private houses, and pretending that they had
orders from the pacha to display their skill, carried boldly off whatever they
could lay their hands upon. Ali saw the general demoralization with
pleasure, especially as it tended to the gratification of his avarice. Every
guest was expected to bring to the palace gate a gift in proportion to his
means, and foot officers watched to see that no one forgot this obligation. At
length, on the nineteenth day, Ali resolved to crown the feast by an orgy
worthy of himself. He caused the galleries and halls of his castle by the lake
to be decorated with unheard-of splendour, and fifteen hundred guests
assembled for a solemn banquet. The pacha appeared in all his glory,
surrounded by his noble attendants and courtiers, and seating himself on a
dais raised above this base crowd which trembled at his glance, gave the
signal to begin. At his voice, vice plunged into its most shameless diversions,
and the wine-steeped wings of debauchery outspread themselves over the
feast. All tongues were at their freest, all imaginations ran wild, all evil
passions were at their height, when suddenly the noise ceased, and the
guests clung together in terror. A man stood at the entrance of the hall,
pale, disordered, and wild-eyed, clothed in torn and blood-stained garments.
As everyone made way at his approach, he easily reached the pacha, and
prostrating himself at his feet, presented a letter. Ali opened and rapidly
perused it; his lips trembled, his eyebrows met in a terrible frown, the
muscles of his forehead contracted alarmingly. He vainly endeavoured to
smile and to look as if nothing had happened, his agitation betrayed him,
and he was obliged to retire, after desiring a herald to announce that he
wished the banquet to continue.
49
Now for the subject of the message, and the cause of the dismay it
produced.
50
Chapter 6
Ali had long cherished a violent passion for Zobeide, the wife of his son Veli
Pacha. Having vainly attempted to gratify it after his son's departure, and
being indignantly repulsed, he had recourse to drugs, and the unhappy
Zobeide remained in ignorance of her misfortune until she found she was
pregnant. Then, half-avowals from her women, compelled to obey the pacha
from fear of death, mixed with confused memories of her own, revealed the
whole terrible truth. Not knowing in her despair which way to turn, she
wrote to Ali, entreating him to visit the harem. As head of the family, he had
a right to enter, being supposed responsible for the conduct of his sons'
families, no-law-giver having hitherto contemplated the possibility of so
disgraceful a crime. When he appeared, Zobeide flung herself at his feet,
speechless with grief. Ali acknowledged his guilt, pleaded the violence of his
passion, wept with his victim, and entreating her to control herself and keep
silence, promised that all should be made right. Neither the prayers nor
tears of Zobeide could induce him to give up the intention of effacing the
traces of his first crime by a second even more horrible.
But the story was already whispered abroad, and Pacho Bey learnt all its
details from the spies he kept in Janina. Delighted at the prospect of
avenging himself on the father, he hastened with his news to the son. Veli
Pacha, furious, vowed vengeance, and demanded Pacho Bey's help, which
was readily promised. But Ali had been warned, and was not a man to be
taken unawares. Pacho Bey, whom Veli had just promoted to the office of
sword-bearer, was attacked in broad daylight by six emissaries sent from
Janina. He obtained timely help, however, and five of the assassins, taken
red-handed, were at once hung without ceremony in the market-place. The
sixth was the messenger whose arrival with the news had caused such
dismay at Ali's banquet.
As Ali reflected how the storm he had raised could best be laid, he was
informed that the ruler of the marriage feast sent by Moustai, Pacha of
Scodra, to receive the young bride who should reign in his harem, had just
arrived in the plain of Janina. He was Yussuf Bey of the Delres, an old
enemy of Ali's, and had encamped with his escort of eight hundred warriors
at the foot of Tomoros of Dodona. Dreading some treachery, he absolutely
refused all entreaties to enter the town, and Ali seeing that it was useless to
51
insist, and that his adversary for the present was safe, at once sent his
grand-daughter, the Princess of Aulis, out to him.
This matter disposed of, Ali was able to attend to his hideous family tragedy.
He began by effecting the disappearance of the women whom he had been
compelled to make his accomplices; they were simply sewn up in sacks by
gipsies and thrown into the lake. This done, he himself led the executioners
into a subterranean part of the castle, where they were beheaded by black
mutes as a reward for their obedience. He then sent a doctor to Zobeide;
who succeeded in causing a miscarriage, and who, his work done, was
seized and strangled by the black mutes who had just beheaded the gipsies.
Having thus got rid of all who could bear witness to his crime, he wrote to
Veli that he might now send for his wife and two of his children, hitherto
detained as hostages, and that the innocence of Zobeide would confound a
calumniator who had dared to assail him with such injurious suspicions.
When this letter arrived, Pacho Bey, distrusting equally the treachery of the
father and the weakness of the son, and content with having sown the seeds
of dissension in his enemy's family, had sufficient wisdom to seek safety in
flight. Ali, furious, vowed, on hearing this, that his vengeance should
overtake him even at the ends of the earth. Meanwhile he fell back on
Yussuf Bey of the Debres, whose escape when lately at Janina still rankled
in his mind. As Yussuf was dangerous both from character and influence,
Ali feared to attack him openly, and sought to assassinate him. This was not
precisely easy, for, exposed to a thousand dangers of this kind, the nobles of
that day were on their guard. Steel and poison were used up, and another
way had to be sought. Ali found it.
One of the many adventurers with whom Janina was filled penetrated to the
pacha's presence, and offered to sell the secret of a powder whereof three
grains would suffice to kill a man with a terrible explosion--explosive
powder, in short. Ali heard with delight, but replied that he must see it in
action before purchasing.
In the dungeons of the castle by the lake, a poor monk of the order of St.
Basil was slowly dying, for having boldly refused a sacrilegious simony
proposed to him by Ali. He was a fit subject for the experiment, and was
successfully blown to pieces, to the great satisfaction of Ali, who concluded
52
his bargain, and hastened to make use of it. He prepared a false firman,
which, according to custom, was enclosed and sealed in a cylindrical case,
and sent to Yussuf Bey by a Greek, wholly ignorant of the real object of his
mission. Opening it without suspicion, Yussuf had his arm blown off, and
died in consequence, but found time to despatch a message to Moustai
Pacha of Scodra, informing him of the catastrophe, and warning him to keep
good guard.
Yussuf's letter was received by Moustai just as a similar infernal machine
was placed in his hands under cover to his young wife. The packet was
seized, and a careful examination disclosed its nature. The mother of
Moustai, a jealous and cruel woman, accused her daughter-in-law of
complicity, and the unfortunate Ayesha, though shortly to become a mother,
expired in agony from the effects of poison, only guilty of being the innocent
instrument of her grandfather's treachery.
Fortune, having frustrated Ali's schemes concerning Moustai Pacha, offered
him as consolation a chance of invading the territory of Parga, the only place
in Epirus which had hitherto escaped his rule, and which he greedily
coveted. Agia, a small Christian town on the coast, had rebelled against him
and allied itself to Parga. It provided an excuse for hostilities, and Ali's
troops, under his son Mouktar, first seized Agia, where they only found a
few old men to massacre, and then marched on Parga, where the rebels had
taken refuge. After a few skirmishes, Mouktar entered the town, and though
the Parganiotes fought bravely, they must inevitably have surrendered had
they been left to themselves. But they had sought protection from the
French, who had garrisoned the citadel, and the French grenadiers
descending rapidly from the height, charged the Turks with so much fury
that they fled in all directions, leaving on the field four "bimbashis," or
captains of a thousand, and a considerable number of killed and wounded.
The pacha's fleet succeeded no better than his army. Issuing from the Gulf
of Ambracia, it was intended to attack Parga from the sea, joining in the
massacre, and cutting off all hope of escape from that side, Ali meaning to
spare neither the garrison nor any male inhabitants over twelve years of age.
But a few shots fired from a small fort dispersed the ships, and a barque
manned by sailors from Paxos pursued them, a shot from which killed Ali's
admiral on his quarter-deck. He was a Greek of Galaxidi, Athanasius Macrys
by name.
53
Filled with anxiety, Ali awaited news at Prevesa, where a courier, sent off at
the beginning of the action, had brought him oranges gathered in the
orchards of Parga. Ali gave him a purse of gold, and publicly proclaimed his
success. His joy was redoubled when a second messenger presented two
heads of French soldiers, and announced that his troops were in possession
of the lower part of Parga. Without further delay he ordered his attendants
to mount, entered his carriage, and started triumphantly on the Roman road
to Nicopolis. He sent messengers to his generals, ordering them to spare the
women and children of Parga, intended for his harem, and above all to take
strict charge of the plunder. He was approaching the arena of Nicopolis
when a third Tartar messenger informed him of the defeat of his army. Ali
changed countenance, and could scarcely articulate the order to return to
Prevesa. Once in his palace, he gave way to such fury that all around him
trembled, demanding frequently if it could be true that his troops were
beaten. "May your misfortune be upon us!" his attendants answered,
prostrating themselves. All at once, looking out on the calm blue sea which
lay before his windows, he perceived his fleet doubling Cape Pancrator and
re-entering the Ambracian Gulf under full sail; it anchored close by the
palace, and on hailing the leading ship a speaking trumpet announced to Ali
the death of his admiral, Athanasius Macrys.
"But Parga, Parga!" cried Ali.
"May Allah grant the pacha long life! The Parganiotes have escaped the
sword of His Highness."
"It is the will of Allah!" murmured the pacha; whose head sank upon his
breast in dejection.
Arms having failed, Ali, as usual, took refuge in plots and treachery, but this
time, instead of corrupting his enemies with gold, he sought to weaken them
by division.
54
Chapter 7
The French commander Nicole, surnamed the "Pilgrim," on account of a
journey he had once made to Mecca, had spent six months at Janina with a
brigade of artillery which General Marmont, then commanding in the Illyrian
provinces, had for a time placed at Ali's disposal. The old officer had
acquired the esteem and friendship of the pacha, whose leisure he had often
amused by stories of his campaigns and various adventures, and although it
was now long since they had met, he still had the reputation of being Ali's
friend. Ali prepared his plans accordingly. He wrote a letter to Colonel
Nicole, apparently in continuation of a regular correspondence between
them, in which he thanked the colonel for his continued affection, and
besought him by various powerful motives to surrender Parga, of which he
promised him the governorship during the rest of his life. He took good care
to complete his treason by allowing the letter to fall into the hands of the
chief ecclesiastics of Parga, who fell head-foremost into the trap. Seeing that
the tone of the letter was in perfect accordance with the former friendly
relations between their French governor and the pacha, they were convinced
of the former's treachery. But the result was not as Ali had hoped: the
Parganiotes resumed their former negotiations with the English, preferring
to place their freedom in the hands of a Christian nation rather than to fall
under the rule of a Mohammedan satrap.... The English immediately sent a
messenger to Colonel Nicole, offering honourable conditions of capitulation.
The colonel returned a decided refusal, and threatened to blow up the place
if the inhabitants, whose intentions he guessed, made the slightest hostile
movement. However, a few days later, the citadel was taken at night, owing
to the treachery of a woman who admitted an English detachment; and the
next day, to the general astonishment, the British standard floated over the
Acropolis of Parga.
All Greece was then profoundly stirred by a faint gleam of the dawn of
liberty, and shaken by a suppressed agitation. The Bourbons again reigned
in France, and the Greeks built a thousand hopes on an event which
changed the basis of the whole European policy. Above all, they reckoned on
powerful assistance from Russia. But England had already begun to dread
anything which could increase either the possessions or the influence of this
formidable power. Above all, she was determined that the Ottoman Empire
should remain intact, and that the Greek navy, beginning to be formidable,
must be destroyed. With these objects in view, negotiations with Ali Pacha
were resumed. The latter was still smarting under his recent
55
disappointment, and to all overtures answered only, "Parga! I must have
Parga."--And the English were compelled to yield it!
Trusting to the word of General Campbell, who had formally promised, on
its surrender, that Parga should be classed along with the seven Ionian
Isles; its grateful inhabitants were enjoying a delicious rest after the storm,
when a letter from the Lord High Commissioner, addressed to Lieutenant-
Colonel de Bosset, undeceived them, and gave warning of the evils which
were to burst on the unhappy town.
On the 25th of March, 1817, notwithstanding the solemn promise made to
the Parganiotes, when they admitted the British troops, that they should
always be on the same footing as the Ionian Isles, a treaty was signed at
Constantinople by the British Plenipotentiary, which stipulated the complete
and stipulated cession of Parga and all its territory to the Ottoman Empire.
Soon there arrived at Janina Sir John Cartwright, the English Consul at
Patras, to arrange for the sale of the lands of the Parganiotes and discuss
the conditions of their emigration. Never before had any such compact
disgraced European diplomacy, accustomed hitherto to regard Turkish
encroachments as simple sacrilege. But Ali Pacha fascinated the English
agents, overwhelming them with favours, honours, and feasts, carefully
watching them all the while. Their correspondence was intercepted, and he
endeavoured by means of his agents to rouse the Parganiotes against them.
The latter lamented bitterly, and appealed to Christian Europe, which
remained deaf to their cries. In the name of their ancestors, they demanded
the rights which had been guaranteed them. "They will buy our lands," they
said; "have we asked to sell them? And even if we received their value, can
gold give us a country and the tombs of our ancestors?"
Ali Pacha invited the Lord High Commissioner of Great Britain, Sir Thomas
Maitland, to a conference at Prevesa, and complained of the exorbitant price
of 1,500,000, at which the commissioners had estimated Parga and its
territory, including private property and church furniture. It had been hoped
that Ali's avarice would hesitate at this high price, but he was not so easily
discouraged. He give a banquet for the Lord High Commissioner, which
degenerated into a shameless orgy. In the midst of this drunken hilarity the
Turk and the Englishman disposed of the territory of Parga; agreeing that a
fresh estimate should be made on the spot by experts chosen by both
English and Turks. The result of this valuation was that the indemnity
56
granted to the Christians was reduced by the English to the sum of 276,075
sterling, instead of the original 500,000. And as Ali's agents only arrived at
the sum of 56,750, a final conference was held at Buthrotum between Ali
and the Lord High Commissioner. The latter then informed the Parganiotes
that the indemnity allowed them was irrevocably fixed at 150,000! The
transaction is a disgrace to the egotistical and venal nation which thus
allowed the life and liberty of a people to be trifled with, a lasting blot on the
honour of England!
The Parganiotes at first could believe neither in the infamy of their
protectors nor in their own misfortune; but both were soon confirmed by a
proclamation of the Lord High Commissioner, informing them that the
pacha's army was marching to take possession of the territory which, by
May 10th, must be abandoned for ever.
The fields were then in full bearing. In the midst of plains ripening for a rich
harvest were 80,000 square feet of olive trees, alone estimated at two
hundred thousand guineas. The sun shone in cloudless azure, the air was
balmy with the scent of orange trees, of pomegranates and citrons. But the
lovely country might have been inhabited by phantoms; only hands raised to
heaven and brows bent to the dust met one's eye. Even the very dust
belonged no more to the wretched inhabitants; they were forbidden to take a
fruit or a flower, the priests might not remove either relics or sacred images.
Church, ornaments, torches, tapers, pyxes, had by this treaty all become
Mahommedan property. The English had sold everything, even to the Host!
Two days more, and all must be left. Each was silently marking the door of
the dwelling destined so soon to shelter an enemy, with a red cross, when
suddenly a terrible cry echoed from street to street, for the Turks had been
perceived on the heights overlooking the town. Terrified and despairing, the
whole population hastened to fall prostrate before the Virgin of Parga, the
ancient guardian of their citadel. A mysterious voice, proceeding from the
sanctuary, reminded them that the English had, in their iniquitous treaty,
forgotten to include the ashes of those whom a happier fate had spared the
sight of the ruin of Parga. Instantly they rushed to the graveyards, tore open
the tombs, and collected the bones and putrefying corpses. The beautiful
olive trees were felled, an enormous funeral pyre arose, and in the general
excitement the orders of the English chief were defied. With naked daggers
in their hands, standing in the crimson light of the flames which were
consuming the bones of their ancestors, the people of Parga vowed to slay
their wives and children, and to kill themselves to the last man, if the
57
infidels dared to set foot in the town before the appointed hour. Xenocles,
the last of the Greek poets, inspired by this sublime manifestation of
despair, even as Jeremiah by the fall of Jerusalem, improvised a hymn
which expresses all the grief of the exiles, and which the exiles interrupted
by their tears and sobs.
A messenger, crossing the sea in all haste, informed the Lord High
Commissioner of the terrible threat of the Parganiotes. He started at once,
accompanied by General Sir Frederic Adams, and landed at Parga by the
light of the funeral pyre. He was received with ill-concealed indignation, and
with assurances that the sacrifice would be at once consummated unless
Ali's troops were held back. The general endeavoured to console and to
reassure the unhappy people, and then proceeded to the outposts,
traversing silent streets in which armed men stood at each door only waiting
a signal before slaying their families, and then turning their weapons
against the English and themselves. He implored them to have patience, and
they answered by pointing to the approaching Turkish army and bidding
him hasten. He arrived at last and commenced negotiations, and the
Turkish officers, no less uneasy than the English garrison, promised to wait
till the appointed hour. The next day passed in mournful silence, quiet as
death. At sunset on the following day, May 9, 1819, the English standard on
the castle of Parga was hauled down, and after a night spent in prayer and
weeping, the Christians demanded the signal of departure.
They had left their dwellings at break of day, and, scattering on the shore,
endeavoured to collect some relics of their country. Some filled little bags
with ashes withdrawn from the funeral pile; others took handfuls of earth,
while the women and children picked up pebbles which they hid in their
clothing and pressed to their bosoms, as if fearing to be deprived of them.
Meanwhile, the ships intended to transport them arrived, and armed
English soldiers superintended the embarkation, which the Turks hailed
from afar with ferocious cries. The Parganiotes were landed in Corfu, where
they suffered yet more injustice. Under various pretexts the money promised
them was reduced and withheld, until destitution compelled them to accept
the little that was offered. Thus closed one of the most odious transactions
which modern history has been compelled to record.
The satrap of Janina had arrived at the fulfilment of his wishes. In the
retirement of his fairy-like palace by the lake he could enjoy voluptuous
58
pleasures to the full. But already seventy-eight years had passed over his
head, and old age had laid the burden of infirmity upon him. His dreams
were dreams of blood, and vainly he sought refuge in chambers glittering
with gold, adorned with arabesques, decorated with costly armour and
covered with the richest of Oriental carpets; remorse stood ever beside him.
Through the magnificence which surrounded him there constantly passed
the pale spectre of Emineh, leading onwards a vast procession of mournful
phantoms, and the guilty pacha buried his face in his hands and shrieked
aloud for help. Sometimes, ashamed of his weakness, he endeavoured to
defy both the reproaches of his conscience and the opinion of the multitude,
and sought to encounter criticism with bravado. If, by chance, he overheard
some blind singer chanting in the streets the satirical verses which, faithful
to the poetical and mocking genius of their ancestors, the Greeks frequently
composed about him, he would order the singer to be brought, would bid
him repeat his verses, and, applauding him, would relate some fresh
anecdote of cruelty, saying, "Go, add that to thy tale; let thy hearers know
what I can do; let them understand that I stop at nothing in order to
overcome my foes! If I reproach myself with anything, it is only with the
deeds I have sometimes failed to carry out."
Sometimes it was the terrors of the life after death which assailed him. The
thought of eternity brought terrible visions in its train, and Ali shuddered at
the prospect of Al-Sirat, that awful bridge, narrow as a spider's thread and
hanging over the furnaces of Hell which a Mussulman must cross in order to
arrive at the gate of Paradise. He ceased to joke about Eblis, the Prince of
Evil, and sank by degrees into profound superstition. He was surrounded by
magicians and soothsayers; he consulted omens, and demanded talismans
and charms from the dervishes, which he had either sewn into his
garments, or suspended in the most secret parts of his palace, in order to
avert evil influences. A Koran was hung about his neck as a defence against
the evil eye, and frequently he removed it and knelt before it, as did Louis XI
before the leaden figures of saints which adorned his hat. He ordered a
complete chemical laboratory from Venice, and engaged alchemists to distill
the water of immortality, by the help of which he hoped to ascend to the
planets and discover the Philosophers' Stone. Not perceiving any practical
result of their labours, he ordered the laboratory to be burnt and the
alchemists to be hung.
Ali hated his fellow-men. He would have liked to leave no survivors, and
often regretted his inability to destroy all those who would have cause to
59
rejoice at his death. Consequently he sought to accomplish as much harm
as he could during the time which remained to him, and, for no possible
reason but that of hatred, he caused the arrest of both Ibrahim pacha, who
had already suffered so much at his hands, and his son, and confined them
both in a dungeon purposely constructed under the grand staircase of the
castle by the lake, in order that he might have the pleasure of passing over
their heads each time he left his apartments or returned to them.
It was not enough for Ali merely to put to death those who displeased him;
the form of punishment must be constantly varied in order to produce a
fresh mode of suffering, therefore new tortures had to be constantly
invented. Now it was a servant, guilty of absence without leave, who was
bound to a stake in the presence of his sister, and destroyed by a cannon
placed six paces off, but only loaded with powder, in order to prolong the
agony; now, a Christian accused of having tried to blow up Janina by
introducing mice with tinder fastened to their tails into the powder
magazine, who was shut up in the cage of Ali's favourite tiger and devoured
by it.
The pacha despised the human race as much as he hated it. A European
having reproached him with the cruelty shown to his subjects, Ali replied:--
"You do not understand the race with which I have to deal. Were I to hang a
criminal on yonder tree, the sight would not deter even his own brother from
stealing in the crowd at its foot. If I had an old man burnt alive, his son
would steal the ashes and sell them. The rabble can be governed by fear
only, and I am the one man who does it successfully."
His conduct perfectly corresponded to his ideas. One great feast-day, two
gipsies devoted their lives in order to avert the evil destiny of the pacha; and,
solemnly convoking on their own heads all misfortunes which might
possibly befall him, cast themselves down from the palace roof. One arose
with difficulty, stunned and suffering, the other remained on the ground
with a broken leg. Ali gave them each forty francs and an annuity of two
pounds of maize daily, and considering this sufficient, took no further
trouble about them.
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Every year, at Ramadan, a large sum was distributed in alms among poor
women without distinction of sect. But Ali contrived to change this act of
benevolence into a barbarous form of amusement.
As he possessed several palaces in Janina at a considerable distance from
each other, the one at which a distribution was to take place was each day
publicly announced, and when the women had waited there for an hour or
two, exposed to sun, rain or cold, as the case might be, they were suddenly
informed that they must go to some other palace, at the opposite end of the
town. When they got there, they usually had to wait for another hour,
fortunate if they were not sent off to a third place of meeting. When the time
at length arrived, an eunuch appeared, followed by Albanian soldiers armed
with staves, carrying a bag of money, which he threw by handfuls right into
the midst of the assembly. Then began a terrible uproar. The women rushed
to catch it, upsetting each other, quarreling, fighting, and uttering cries of
terror and pain, while the Albanians, pretending to enforce order, pushed
into the crowd, striking right and left with their batons. The pacha
meanwhile sat at a window enjoying the spectacle, and impartially
applauding all well delivered blows, no matter whence they came. During
these distributions, which really benefitted no one, many women were
always severely hurt, and some died from the blows they had received.
Ali maintained several carriages for himself and his family, but allowed no
one else to share in this prerogative. To avoid being jolted, he simply took up
the pavement in Janina and the neighbouring towns, with the result that in
summer one was choked by dust, and in winter could hardly get through
the mud. He rejoiced in the public inconvenience, and one day having to go
out in heavy rain, he remarked to one of the officers of his escort, "How
delightful to be driven through this in a carriage, while you will have the
pleasure of following on horseback! You will be wet and dirty, whilst I smoke
my pipe and laugh at your condition."
He could not understand why Western sovereigns should permit their
subjects to enjoy the same conveniences and amusements as themselves. "If
I had a theatre," he said, "I would allow no one to be present at
performances except my own children; but these idiotic Christians do not
know how to uphold their own dignity."
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There was no end to the mystifications which it amused the pacha to carry
out with those who approached him.
One day he chose to speak Turkish to a Maltese merchant who came to
display some jewels. He was informed that the merchant understood only
Greek and Italian. He none the less continued his discourse without
allowing anyone to translate what he said into Greek. The Maltese at length
lost patience, shut up his cases, and departed. Ali watched him with the
utmost calm, and as he went out told him, still in Turkish, to come again
the next day.
An unexpected occurrence seemed, like the warning finger of Destiny, to
indicate an evil omen for the pacha's future. "Misfortunes arrive in troops,"
says the forcible Turkish proverb, and a forerunner of disasters came to Ali
Pacha.
One morning he was suddenly roused by the Sheik Yussuf, who had forced
his way in, in spite of the guards. "Behold!" said he, handing Ali a letter,
"Allah, who punishes the guilty, has permitted thy seraglio of Tepelen to be
burnt. Thy splendid palace, thy beautiful furniture, costly stuffs, cashmeers,
furs, arms, all are destroyed! And it is thy youngest and best beloved son,
Salik Bey himself, whose hand kindled the flames!" So saying, Yussuf
turned and departed, crying with a triumphant voice, "Fire! fire! fire!"
Ali instantly ordered his horse, and, followed by his guards, rode without
drawing rein to Tepelen. As soon as he arrived at the place where his palace
had formerly insulted the public misery, he hastened to examine the cellars
where his treasures were deposited. All was intact, silver plate, jewels, and
fifty millions of francs in gold, enclosed in a well over which he had caused a
tower to be built. After this examination he ordered all the ashes to be
carefully sifted in hopes of recovering the gold in the tassels and fringes of
the sofas, and the silver from the plate and the armour. He next proclaimed
through the length and breadth of the land, that, being by the hand of Allah
deprived of his house, and no longer possessing anything in his native town,
he requested all who loved him to prove their affection by bringing help in
proportion. He fixed the day of reception for each commune, and for almost
each individual of any rank, however small, according to their distance from
Tepelen, whither these evidences of loyalty were to be brought.
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During five days Ali received these forced benevolences from all parts. He
sat, covered with rags, on a shabby palm-leaf mat placed at the outer gate of
his ruined palace, holding in his left hand a villainous pipe of the kind used
by the lowest people, and in his right an old red cap, which he extended for
the donations of the passers-by. Behind stood a Jew from Janina, charged
with the office of testing each piece of gold and valuing jewels which were
offered instead of money; for, in terror, each endeavoured to appear
generous. No means of obtaining a rich harvest were neglected; for instance,
Ali distributed secretly large sums among poor and obscure people, such as
servants, mechanics, and soldiers, in order that by returning them in public
they might appear to be making great sacrifices, so that richer and more
distinguished persons could not, without appearing ill-disposed towards the
pacha, offer only the same amount as did the poor, but were obliged to
present gifts of enormous value.
After this charity extorted from their fears, the pacha's subjects hoped to be
at peace. But a new decree proclaimed throughout Albania required them to
rebuild and refurnish the formidable palace of Tepelen entirely at the public
expense. Ali then returned to Janina, followed by his treasure and a few
women who had escaped from the flames, and whom he disposed of
amongst his friends, saying that he was no longer sufficiently wealthy to
maintain so many slaves.
Fate soon provided him with a second opportunity for amassing wealth.
Arta, a wealthy town with a Christian population, was ravaged by the
plague, and out of eight thousand inhabitants, seven thousand were swept
away. Hearing this, Ali hastened to send commissioners to prepare an
account of furniture and lands which the pacha claimed as being heir to his
subjects. A few livid and emaciated spectres were yet to be found in the
streets of Arta. In order that the inventory might be more complete, these
unhappy beings were compelled to wash in the Inachus blankets, sheets,
and clothes steeped in bubonic infection, while the collectors were hunting
everywhere for imaginary hidden treasure. Hollow trees were sounded, walls
pulled down, the most unlikely corners examined, and a skeleton which was
discovered still girt with a belt containing Venetian sequins was gathered up
with the utmost care. The archons of the town were arrested and tortured in
the hope of discovering buried treasure, the clue to which had disappeared
along with the owners. One of these magistrates, accused of having hidden
some valuable objects, was plunged up to his shoulders in a boiler full of
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melted lead and boiling oil. Old men, women, children, rich and poor alike,
were interrogated, beaten, and compelled to abandon the last remains of
their property in order to save their lives.
Having thus decimated the few inhabitants remaining to the town, it became
necessary to repeople it. With this object in view, Ali's emissaries overran
the villages of Thessaly, driving before them all the people they met in flocks,
and compelling them to settle in Arta. These unfortunate colonists were also
obliged to find money to pay the pacha for the houses they were forced to
occupy.
This business being settled, Ali turned to another which had long been on
his mind. We have seen how Ismail Pacho Bey escaped the assassins sent to
murder him. A ship, despatched secretly from Prevesa, arrived at the place
of his retreat. The captain, posing as a merchant, invited Ismail to come on
board and inspect his goods. But the latter, guessing a trap, fled promptly,
and for some time all trace of him was lost. Ali, in revenge, turned his wife
out of the palace at Janina which she still occupied, and placed her in a
cottage, where she was obliged to earn a living by spinning. But he did not
stop there, and, learning after some time that Pacho Bey had sought refuge
with the Nazir of Drama, who had taken him into favour, he resolved to
strike a last blow, more sure and more terrible than the others. Again
Ismail's lucky star saved him from the plots of his enemy. During a hunting
party he encountered a kapidgi-bachi, or messenger from the sultan, who
asked him where he could find the Nazir, to whom he was charged with an
important communication. As kapidgi-bachis are frequently bearers of evil
tidings, which it is well to ascertain at once, and as the Nazir was at some
distance, Pacho Bey assumed the latter's part, and the sultan's confidential
messenger informed him that he was the bearer of a firman granted at the
request of Ali Pacha of Janina.
"Ali of Tepeleni. He is my friend. How can I serve him?"
"By executing the present order, sent you by the Divan, desiring you to
behead a traitor, named Pacho Bey, who crept into your service a short time
ago."
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"Willingly! but he is not an easy man to seize being brave, vigorous, clever,
and cunning. Craft will be necessary in this case. He may appear at any
moment, and it is advisable that he should not see you. Let no one suspect
who you are, but go to Drama, which is only two hours distant, and await
me there. I shall return this evening, and you can consider your errand as
accomplished."
The kapidgi-bachi made a sign of comprehension, and directed his course
towards Drama; while Ismail, fearing that the Nazir, who had only known
him a short time, would sacrifice him with the usual Turkish indifference,
fled in the opposite direction. At the end of an hour he encountered a
Bulgarian monk, with whom he exchanged clothes--a disguise which
enabled him to traverse Upper Macedonia in safety. Arriving at the great
Servian convent in the mountains whence the Axius takes its rise, he
obtained admission under an assumed name. But feeling sure of the
discretion of the monks, after a few days he explained his situation to them.
Ali, learning the ill-success of his latest stratagem, accused the Nazir of
conniving at Pacho Bey's escape. But the latter easily justified himself with
the Divan by giving precise information of what had really occurred. This
was what Ali wanted, who profited thereby in having the fugitive's track
followed up, and soon got wind of his retreat. As Pacho Bey's innocence had
been proved in the explanations given to the Porte, the death firman
obtained against him became useless, and Ali affected to abandon him to his
fate, in order the better to conceal the new plot he was conceiving against
him.
Athanasius Vaya, chief assassin of the Kardikiotes, to whom Ali imparted
his present plan for the destruction of Ismail, begged for the honour of
putting it into execution, swearing that this time Ismail should not escape.
The master and the instrument disguised their scheme under the
appearance of a quarrel, which astonished the whole town. At the end of a
terrible scene which took place in public, Ali drove the confidant of his
crimes from the palace, overwhelming him with insults, and declaring that
were Athanasius not the son of his children's foster-mother, he would have
sent him to the gibbet. He enforced his words by the application of a stick,
and Vaya, apparently overwhelmed by terror and affliction, went round to all
the nobles of the town, vainly entreating them to intercede for him. The only
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favour which Mouktar Pacha could obtain for him was a sentence of exile
allowing him to retreat to Macedonia.
Athanasius departed from Janina with all the demonstrations of utter
despair, and continued his route with the haste of one who fears pursuit.
Arrived in Macedonia, he assumed the habit of a monk, and undertook a
pilgrimage to Mount Athos, saying that both the disguise and the journey
were necessary to his safety. On the way he encountered one of the itinerant
friars of the great Servian convent, to whom he described his disgrace in
energetic terms, begging him to obtain his admission among the lay
brethren of his monastery.
Delighted at the prospect of bringing back to the fold of the Church a man
so notorious for his crimes, the friar hastened to inform his superior, who in
his turn lost no time in announcing to Pacho Bey that his compatriot and
companion in misfortune was to be received among the lay brethren, and in
relating the history of Athanasius as he himself had heard it. Pacho Bey,
however, was not easily deceived, and at once guessing that Vaya's real
object was his own assassination, told his doubts to the superior, who had
already received him as a friend. The latter retarded the reception of Vaya so
as to give Pacho time to escape and take the road to Constantinople. Once
arrived there, he determined to brave the storm and encounter Ali openly.
Endowed by nature with a noble presence and with masculine firmness,
Pacho Bey possessed also the valuable gift of speaking all the various
tongues of the Ottoman Empire. He could not fail to distinguish himself in
the capital and to find an opening for his great talents. But his inclination
drove him at first to seek his fellow-exiles from Epirus, who were either his
old companions in arms, friends, or relations, for he was allied to all the
principal families, and was even, through his wife, nearly connected with his
enemy, Ali Pacha himself.
He had learnt what this unfortunate lady had already endured on his
account, and feared that she would suffer yet more if he took active
measures against the pacha. While he yet hesitated between affection and
revenge, he heard that she had died of grief and misery. Now that despair
had put an end to uncertainty, he set his hand to the work.
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At this precise moment Heaven sent him a friend to console and aid him in
his vengeance, a Christian from AEtolia, Paleopoulo by name. This man was
on the point of establishing himself in Russian Bessarabia, when he met
Pacho Bey and joined with him in the singular coalition which was to
change the fate of the Tepelenian dynasty.
Paleopoulo reminded his companion in misfortune of a memorial presented
to the Divan in 1812, which had brought upon Ali a disgrace from which he
only escaped in consequence of the overwhelming political events which just
then absorbed the attention of the Ottoman Government. The Grand
Seigneur had sworn by the tombs of his ancestors to attend to the matter as
soon as he was able, and it was only requisite to remind him of his vow.
Pacho Bey and his friend drew up a new memorial, and knowing the sultan's
avarice, took care to dwell on the immense wealth possessed by Ali, on his
scandalous exactions, and on the enormous sums diverted from the
Imperial Treasury. By overhauling the accounts of his administration,
millions might be recovered. To these financial considerations Pacho Bey
added some practical ones. Speaking as a man sure of his facts and well
acquainted with the ground, he pledged his head that with twenty thousand
men he would, in spite of Ali's troops and strongholds, arrive before Janina
without firing a musket.
However good these plans appeared, they were by no means to the taste of
the sultan's ministers, who were each and all in receipt of large pensions
from the man at whom they struck. Besides, as in Turkey it is customary for
the great fortunes of Government officials to be absorbed on their death by
the Imperial Treasury, it of course appeared easier to await the natural
inheritance of Ali's treasures than to attempt to seize them by a war which
would certainly absorb part of them. Therefore, while Pacho Bey's zeal was
commended, he obtained only dilatory answers, followed at length by a
formal refusal.
Meanwhile, the old AEtolian, Paleopoulo, died, having prophesied the
approaching Greek insurrection among his friends, and pledged Pacho Bey
to persevere in his plans of vengeance, assuring him that before long Ali
would certainly fall a victim to them. Thus left alone, Pacho, before taking
any active steps in his work of vengeance, affected to give himself up to the
67
strictest observances of the Mohammedan religion. Ali, who had established
a most minute surveillance over his actions, finding that his time was spent
with ulemas and dervishes, imagined that he had ceased to be dangerous,
and took no further trouble about him.
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Chapter 8
A career of successful crime had established Ali's rule over a population
equal to that of the two kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. But his ambition
was not yet satisfied. The occupation of Parga did not crown his desires, and
the delight which it caused him was much tempered by the escape of the
Parganiotes, who found in exile a safe refuge from his persecution. Scarcely
had he finished the conquest of Middle Albania before he was exciting a
faction against the young Moustai Pacha in Scodra, a new object of greed.
He also kept an army of spies in Wallachia, Moldavia, Thrace, and
Macedonia, and, thanks to them, he appeared to be everywhere present, and
was mixed up in every intrigue, private or political, throughout the empire.
He had paid the English agents the price agreed on for Parga, but he repaid
himself five times over, by gifts extorted from his vassals, and by the value of
the Parga lands, now become his property. His palace of Tepelen had been
rebuilt at the public expense, and was larger and more magnificent than
before; Janina was embellished with new buildings; elegant pavilions rose
on the shores of the lake; in short, Ali's luxury was on a level with his vast
riches. His sons and grandsons were provided for by important positions,
and Ali himself was sovereign prince in everything but the name.
There was no lack of flattery, even from literary persons. At Vienna a poem
was printed in his honour, and a French-Greek Grammar was dedicated to
him, and such titles as "Most Illustrious," "Most Powerful," and "Most
Clement," were showered upon him, as upon a man whose lofty virtues and
great exploits echoed through the world. A native of Bergamo, learned in
heraldry, provided him with a coat of arms, representing, on a field gules, a
lion, embracing three cubs, emblematic of the Tepelenian dynasty. Already
he had a consul at Leucadia accepted by the English, who, it is said,
encouraged him to declare himself hereditary Prince of Greece, under the
nominal suzerainty of the sultan; their real intention being to use him as a
tool in return for their protection, and to employ him as a political counter-
balance to the hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia, who for the last twenty
years had been simply Russian agents in disguise. This was not all; many of
the adventurers with whom the Levant swarms, outlaws from every country,
had found a refuge in Albania, and helped not a little to excite Ali's ambition
by their suggestions. Some of these men frequently saluted him as King, a
title which he affected to reject with indignation; and he disdained to imitate
other states by raising a private standard of his own, preferring not to
compromise his real power by puerile displays of dignity; and he lamented
69
the foolish ambition of his children, who would ruin him, he said, by aiming,
each, at becoming a vizier. Therefore he did not place his hope or confidence
in them, but in the adventurers of every sort and kind, pirates, coiners,
renegades, assassins, whom he kept in his pay and regarded as his best
support. These he sought to attach to his person as men who might some
day be found useful, for he did not allow the many favours of fortune to
blind him to the real danger of his position. "A vizier," he was answered,
"resembles a man wrapped in costly furs, but he sits on a barrel of powder,
which only requires a spark to explode it." The Divan granted all the
concessions which Ali demanded, affecting ignorance of his projects of revolt
and his intelligence with the enemies of the State; but then apparent
weakness was merely prudent temporising. It was considered that Ali,
already advanced in years, could not live much longer, and it was hoped
that, at his death, Continental Greece, now in some measure detached from
the Ottoman rule, would again fall under the sultan's sway.
Meanwhile, Pacho Bey, bent on silently undermining Ali's influence, had
established himself as an intermediary for all those who came to demand
justice on account of the pacha's exactions, and he contrived that both his
own complaints and those of his clients should penetrate to the ears of the
sultan, who, pitying his misfortunes, made him a kapidgi-bachi, as a
commencement of better things. About this time the sultan also admitted to
the Council a certain Abdi Effendi of Larissa, one of the richest nobles of
Thessaly, who had been compelled by the tyranny of Veli Pacha to fly from
his country. The two new dignitaries, having secured Khalid Effendi as a
partisan, resolved to profit by his influence to carry out their plans of
vengeance on the Tepelenian family. The news of Pacho Bey's promotion
roused Ali from the security in which he was plunged, and he fell a prey to
the most lively anxiety. Comprehending at once the evil which this man,--
trained in his own school,--might cause him, he exclaimed, "Ah! if Heaven
would only restore me the strength of my youth, I would plunge my sword
into his heart even in the midst of the Divan."
It was not long before Ali's enemies found an extremely suitable opportunity
for opening their attack. Veli Pacha, who had for his own profit increased
the Thessalian taxation fivefold, had in doing so caused so much oppression
that many of the inhabitants preferred the griefs and dangers of emigration
rather than remain under so tyrannical a rule. A great number of Greeks
sought refuge at Odessa, and the great Turkish families assembled round
Pacho Bey and Abdi Effendi at Constantinople, who lost no opportunity of
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interceding in their favour. The sultan, who as yet did not dare to act openly
against the Tepelenian family, was at least able to relegate Veli to the
obscure post of Lepanto, and Veli, much disgusted, was obliged to obey. He
quitted the new palace he had just built at Rapehani, and betook himself to
the place of exile, accompanied by actors, Bohemian dancers, bear leaders,
and a crowd of prostitutes.
Thus attacked in the person of his most powerful son, Ali thought to terrify
his enemies by a daring blow. He sent three Albanians to Constantinople to
assassinate Pacho Bey. They fell upon him as he was proceeding to the
Mosque of Saint-Sophia, on the day on which the sultan also went in order
to be present at the Friday ceremonial prayer, and fired several shots at
him. He was wounded, but not mortally.
The assassins, caught red-handed, were hung at the gate of the Imperial
Seraglio, but not before confessing that they were sent by the Pacha of
Janina. The Divan, comprehending at last that so dangerous a man must be
dealt with at any cost, recapitulated all Ali's crimes, and pronounced a
sentence against him which was confirmed by a decree of the Grand Mufti.
It set forth that Ali Tepelen, having many times obtained pardon for his
crimes, was now guilty of high treason in the first degree, and that he
would, as recalcitrant, be placed under the ban of the Empire if he did not
within forty days appear at the Gilded Threshold of the Felicitous Gate of the
Monarch who dispenses crowns to the princes who reign in this world, in
order to justify himself. As may be supposed, submission to such an order
was about the last thing Ali contemplated. As he failed to appear, the Divan
caused the Grand Mufti to launch the thunder of excommunication against
him.
Ali had just arrived at Parga, which he now saw for the third time since he
had obtained it, when his secretaries informed him that only the rod of
Moses could save him from the anger of Pharaoh--a figurative mode of
warning him that he had nothing to hope for. But Ali, counting on his usual
luck, persisted in imagining that he could, once again, escape from his
difficulty by the help of gold and intrigue. Without discontinuing the
pleasures in which he was immersed, he contented himself with sending
presents and humble petitions to Constantinople. But both were alike
useless, for no one even ventured to transmit them to the sultan, who had
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sworn to cut off the head of anyone who dared mention the name of Ali
Tepeleni in his presence.
Receiving no answer to his overtures, Ali became a prey to terrible anxiety.
As he one day opened the Koran to consult it as to his future, his divining
rod stopped at verse 82, chap. xix., which says, "He doth flatter himself in
vain. He shall appear before our tribunal naked and bare." Ali closed the
book and spat three times into his bosom. He was yielding to the most dire
presentiments, when a courier, arriving from the capital, informed him that
all hope of pardon was lost.
He ordered his galley to be immediately prepared, and left his seraglio,
casting a look of sadness on the beautiful gardens where only yesterday he
had received the homage of his prostrate slaves. He bade farewell to his
wives, saying that he hoped soon to return, and descended to the shore,
where the rowers received him with acclamations. The sail was set to a
favourable breeze, and Ali, leaving the shore he was never to see again,
sailed towards Erevesa, where he hoped to meet the Lord High
Commissioner Maitland. But the time of prosperity had gone by, and the
regard which had once been shown him changed with his fortunes. The
interview he sought was not granted.
The sultan now ordered a fleet to be equipped, which, after Ramadan, was to
disembark troops on the coast of Epirus, while all the neighbouring pachas
received orders to hold themselves in readiness to march with all the troops
of their respective Governments against Ali, whose name was struck out of
the list of viziers. Pacho Bey was named pacha of Janina and Delvino on
condition of subduing them, and was placed in command of the whole
expedition.
However, notwithstanding these orders, there was not at the beginning of
April, two months after the attempted assassination of Pacho Bey, a single
soldier ready to march on Albania. Ramadan, that year, did not close until
the new moon of July. Had Ali put himself boldly at the head of the
movement which was beginning to stir throughout Greece, he might have
baffled these vacillating projects, and possibly dealt a fatal blow to the
Ottoman Empire. As far back as 1808, the Hydriotes had offered to
recognise his son Veli, then Vizier of the Morea, as their Prince, and to
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support him in every way, if he would proclaim the independence of the
Archipelago. The Moreans bore him no enmity until he refused to help them
to freedom, and would have returned to him had he consented.
On the other side, the sultan, though anxious for war, would not spend a
penny in order to wage it; and it was not easy to corrupt some of the great
vassals ordered to march at their own expense against a man in whose
downfall they had no special interest. Nor were the means of seduction
wanting to Ali, whose wealth was enormous; but he preferred to keep it in
order to carry on the war which he thought he could no longer escape. He
made, therefore, a general appeal to all Albanian warriors, whatever their
religion. Mussulmans and Christians, alike attracted by the prospect of
booty and good pay, flocked to his standard in crowds.
He organised all these adventurers on the plan of the Armatous, by
companies, placing a captain of his own choice at the head of each, and
giving each company a special post to defend. Of all possible plans this was
the best adapted to his country, where only a guerilla warfare can be carried
on, and where a large army could not subsist.
In repairing to the posts assigned to them, these troops committed such
terrible depredations that the provinces sent to Constantinople demanding
their suppression. The Divan answered the petitioners that it was their own
business to suppress these disorders, and to induce the Klephotes to turn
their arms against Ali, who had nothing to hope from the clemency of the
Grand Seigneur. At the same time circular letters were addressed to the
Epirotes, warning them to abandon the cause of a rebel, and to consider the
best means of freeing themselves from a traitor, who, having long oppressed
them, now sought to draw down on their country all the terrors of war. Ali,
who everywhere maintained numerous and active spies, now redoubled his
watchfulness, and not a single letter entered Epirus without being opened
and read by his agents. As an extra precaution, the guardians of the passes
were enjoined to slay without mercy any despatch-bearer not provided with
an order signed by Ali himself; and to send to Janina under escort any
travellers wishing to enter Epirus. These measures were specially aimed
against Suleyman Pacha, who had succeeded Veli in the government of
Thessaly, and replaced Ali himself in the office of Grand Provost of the
Highways. Suleyman's secretary was a Greek called Anagnorto, a native of
Macedonia, whose estates Ali had seized, and who had fled with his family
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to escape further persecution. He had become attached to the court party,
less for the sake of vengeance on Ali than to aid the cause of the Greeks, for
whose freedom he worked by underhand methods. He persuaded Suleyman
Pacha that the Greeks would help him to dethrone Ali, for whom they
cherished the deepest hatred, and he was determined that they should learn
the sentence of deprivation and excommunication fulminated against the
rebel pacha. He introduced into the Greek translation which he was
commissioned to make, ambiguous phrases which were read by the
Christians as a call to take up arms in the cause of liberty. In an instant, all
Hellas was up in arms. The Mohammedans were alarmed, but the Greeks
gave out that it was in order to protect themselves and their property
against the bands of brigands which had appeared on all sides. This was the
beginning of the Greek insurrection, and occurred in May 1820, extending
from Mount Pindus to Thermopylae. However, the Greeks, satisfied with
having vindicated their right to bear arms in their own defence, continued to
pay their taxes, and abstained from all hostility.
At the news of this great movement, Ali's friends advised him to turn it to
his own advantage. "The Greeks in arms," said they, "want a chief: offer
yourself as their leader. They hate you, it is true, but this feeling may
change. It is only necessary to make them believe, which is easily done, that
if they will support your cause you will embrace Christianity and give them
freedom."
There was no time to lose, for matters became daily more serious. Ali
hastened to summon what he called a Grand Divan, composed of the chiefs
of both sects, Mussulmans and Christians. There were assembled men of
widely different types, much astonished at finding themselves in company:
the venerable Gabriel, Archbishop of Janina, and uncle of the unfortunate
Euphrosyne, who had been dragged thither by force; Abbas, the old head of
the police, who had presided at the execution of the Christian martyr; the
holy bishop of Velas, still bearing the marks of the chains with which Ali
had loaded him; and Porphyro, Archbishop of Arta, to whom the turban
would have been more becoming than the mitre.
Ashamed of the part he was obliged to play, Ali, after long hesitation,
decided on speaking, and, addressing the Christians, "O Greeks!" he said,
"examine my conduct with unprejudiced minds, and you will see manifest
proofs of the confidence and consideration which I have ever shown you.
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What pacha has ever treated you as I have done? Who would have treated
your priests and the objects of your worship with as much respect? Who
else would have conceded the privileges which you enjoy? for you hold rank
in my councils, and both the police and the administration of my States are
in your hands. I do not, however, seek to deny the evils with which I have
afflicted you; but, alas! these evils have been the result of my enforced
obedience to the cruel and perfidious orders of the Sublime Porte. It is to the
Porte that these wrongs must be attributed, for if my actions be attentively
regarded it will be seen that I only did harm when compelled thereto by the
course of events. Interrogate my actions, they will speak more fully than a
detailed apology.
"My position with regard to the Suliotes allowed no half-and-half measures.
Having once broken with them, I was obliged either to drive them from my
country or to exterminate them. I understood the political hatred of the
Ottoman Cabinet too well not to know that it would declare war against me
sooner or later, and I knew that resistance would be impossible, if on one
side I had to repel the Ottoman aggression, and on the other to fight against
the formidable Suliotes.
"I might say the same of the Parganiotes. You know that their town was the
haunt of my enemies, and each time that I appealed to them to change their
ways they answered only with insults and threats. They constantly aided the
Suliotes with whom I was at war; and if at this moment they still were
occupying Parga, you would see them throw open the gates of Epirus to the
forces of the sultan. But all this does not prevent my being aware that my
enemies blame me severely, and indeed I also blame myself, and deplore the
faults which the difficulty of my position has entailed upon me. Strong in my
repentance, I do not hesitate to address myself to those whom I have most
grievously wounded. Thus I have long since recalled to my service a great
number of Suliotes, and those who have responded to my invitation are
occupying important posts near my person. To complete the reconciliation, I
have written to those who are still in exile, desiring them to return fearlessly
to their country, and I have certain information that this proposal has been
everywhere accepted with enthusiasm. The Suliotes will soon return to their
ancestral houses, and, reunited under my standard, will join me in
combating the Osmanlis, our common enemies.
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"As to the avarice of which I am accused, it seems easily justified by the
constant necessity I was under of satisfying the inordinate cupidity of the
Ottoman ministry, which incessantly made me pay dearly for tranquillity.
This was a personal affair, I acknowledge, and so also is the accumulation of
treasure made in order to support the war, which the Divan has at length
declared."
Here Ali ceased, then having caused a barrel full of gold pieces to be emptied
on the floor, he continued:
"Behold a part of the treasure I have preserved with so much care, and
which has been specially obtained from the Turks, our common enemies: it
is yours. I am now more than ever delighted at being the friend of the
Greeks. Their bravery is a sure earnest of victory, and we will shortly re-
establish the Greek Empire, and drive the Osmanlis across the Bosphorus.
O bishops and priests of Issa the prophet! bless the arms of the Christians,
your children. O primates! I call upon you to defend your rights, and to rule
justly the brave nation associated with my interests."
This discourse produced very different impressions on the Christian priests
and archons. Some replied only by raising looks of despair to Heaven, others
murmured their adhesion. A great number remained uncertain, not knowing
what to decide. The Mirdite chief, he who had refused to slaughter the
Kardikiotes, declared that neither he nor any Skipetar of the Latin
communion would bear arms against their legitimate sovereign the sultan.
But his words were drowned by cries of "Long live Ali pacha! Long live the
restorer of liberty!" uttered by some chiefs of adventurers and brigands.
76
Chapter 9
Yet next day, May 24th, 1820, Ali addressed a circular letter to his brothers
the Christians, announcing that in future he would consider them as his
most faithful subjects, and that henceforth he remitted the taxes paid to his
own family. He wound up by asking for soldiers, but the Greeks having
learnt the instability of his promises, remained deaf to his invitations. At the
same time he sent messengers to the Montenegrins and the Servians,
inciting them to revolt, and organised insurrections in Wallachia and
Moldavia to the very environs of Constantinople.
Whilst the Ottoman vassals assembled only in small numbers and very
slowly under their respective standards, every day there collected round the
castle of Janina whole companies of Toxidae, of Tapazetae, and of
Chamidae; so that Ali, knowing that Ismail Pacho Bey had boasted that he
could arrive in sight of Janina without firing a gun, said in his turn that he
would not treat with the Porte until he and his troops should be within eight
leagues of Constantinople.
He had fortified and supplied with munitions of war Ochrida, Avlone,
Cannia, Berat, Cleisoura, Premiti, the port of Panormus, Santi-Quaranta,
Buthrotum, Delvino, Argyro-Castron, Tepelen, Parga, Prevesa, Sderli,
Paramythia, Arta, the post of the Five Wells, Janina and its castles. These
places contained four hundred and twenty cannons of all sizes, for the most
part in bronze, mounted on siege-carriages, and seventy mortars. Besides
these, there were in the castle by the lake, independently of the guns in
position, forty field-pieces, sixty mountain guns, a number of Congreve
rockets, formerly given him by the English, and an enormous quantity of
munitions of war. Finally, he endeavoured to establish a line of semaphores
between Janina and Prevesa, in order to have prompt news of the Turkish
fleet, which was expected to appear on this coast.
Ali, whose strength seemed to increase with age, saw to everything and
appeared everywhere; sometimes in a litter borne by his Albanians,
sometimes in a carriage raised into a kind of platform, but it was more
frequently on horseback that he appeared among his labourers. Often he sat
on the bastions in the midst of the batteries, and conversed familiarly with
those who surrounded him. He narrated the successes formerly obtained
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against the sultan by Kara Bazaklia, Vizier of Scodra, who, like himself, had
been attained with the sentence of deprivation and excommunication;
recounting how the rebel pacha, shut up in his citadel with seventy-two
warriors, had seen collapse at his feet the united forces of four great
provinces of the Ottoman Empire, commanded by twenty-two pachas, who
were almost entirely annihilated in one day by the Guegues. He reminded
them also, of the brilliant victory gained by Passevend Oglon, Pacha of
Widdin, of quite recent memory, which is celebrated in the warlike songs of
the Klephts of Roumelia.
Almost simultaneously, Ali's sons, Mouktar and Veli, arrived at Janina. Veli
had been obliged, or thought himself obliged, to evacuate Lepanto by
superior forces, and brought only discouraging news, especially as to the
wavering fidelity of the Turks. Mouktar, on the contrary, who had just made
a tour of inspection in the Musache, had only noticed favourable
dispositions, and deluded himself with the idea that the Chaonians, who
had taken up arms, had done so in order to aid his father. He was curiously
mistaken, for these tribes hated Ali with a hatred all the deeper for being
compelled to conceal it, and were only in arms in order to repel aggression.
The advice given by the sons to their father as to the manner of treating the
Mohammedans differed widely in accordance with their respective opinions.
Consequently a violent quarrel arose between them, ostensibly on account of
this dispute, but in reality on the subject of their father's inheritance, which
both equally coveted. Ali had brought all his treasure to Janina, and
thenceforth neither son would leave the neighbourhood of so excellent a
father. They overwhelmed him with marks of affection, and vowed that the
one had left Lepanto, and the other Berat, only in order to share his danger.
Ali was by no means duped by these protestations, of which he divined the
motive only too well, and though he had never loved his sons, he suffered
cruelly in discovering that he was not beloved by them.
Soon he had other troubles to endure. One of his gunners assassinated a
servant of Veli's, and Ali ordered the murderer to be punished, but when the
sentence was to be carried out the whole corps of artillery mutinied. In order
to save appearances, the pacha was compelled to allow them to ask for the
pardon of the criminal whom he dared not punish. This incident showed
him that his authority was no longer paramount, and he began to doubt the
fidelity of his soldiers. The arrival of the Ottoman fleet further enlightened
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him to his true position. Mussulman and Christian alike, all the inhabitants
of Northern Albania, who had hitherto concealed their disaffection under an
exaggerated semblance of devotion, now hastened to make their submission
to the sultan. The Turks, continuing their success, laid siege to Parga, which
was held by Mehemet, Veli's eldest son. He was prepared to make a good
defence, but was betrayed by his troops, who opened the gates of the town,
and he was compelled to surrender at discretion. He was handed over to the
commander of the naval forces, by whom he was well treated, being
assigned the best cabin in the admiral's ship and given a brilliant suite. He
was assured that the sultan, whose only quarrel was with his grandfather,
would show him favour, and would even deal mercifully with Ali, who, with
his treasures, would merely be sent to an important province in Asia Minor.
He was induced to write in this strain to his family and friends in order to
induce them to lay down their arms.
The fall of Parga made a great impression on the Epirotes, who valued its
possession far above its real importance. Ali rent his garments and cursed
the days of his former good fortune, during which he had neither known
how to moderate his resentment nor to foresee the possibility of any change
of fortune.
The fall of Parga was succeeded by that of Arta of Mongliana, where was
situated Ali's country house, and of the post of the Five Wells. Then came a
yet more overwhelming piece of news: Omar Brionis, whom Ali, having
formerly despoiled of its wealth, had none the less recently appointed
general-in-chief, had gone over to the enemy with all his troops!
Ali then decided on carrying out a project he had formed in case of
necessity, namely, on destroying the town of Janina, which would afford
shelter to the enemy and a point of attack against the fortresses in which he
was entrenched. When this resolution was known, the inhabitants thought
only of saving themselves and their property from the ruin from which
nothing could save their country. But most of them were only preparing to
depart, when Ali gave leave to the Albanian soldiers yet faithful to him to
sack the town.
The place was immediately invaded by an unbridled soldiery. The
Metropolitan church, where Greeks and Turks alike deposited their gold,
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jewels, and merchandise, even as did the Greeks of old in the temples of the
gods, became the first object of pillage. Nothing was respected. The
cupboards containing sacred vestments were broken open; so were the
tombs of the archbishops, in which were interred reliquaries adorned with
precious stones; and the altar itself was defiled with the blood of ruffians
who fought for chalices and silver crosses.
The town presented an equally terrible spectacle; neither Christians nor
Mussulmans were spared, and the women's apartments, forcibly entered,
were given up to violence. Some of the more courageous citizens
endeavoured to defend their houses and families against these bandits, and
the clash of arms mingled with cries and groans. All at once the roar of a
terrible explosion rose above the other sounds, and a hail of bombs, shells,
grenades, and rockets carried devastation and fire into the different quarters
of the town, which soon presented the spectacle of an immense
conflagration. Ali, seated on the great platform of the castle by the lake,
which seemed to vomit fire like a volcano, directed the bombardment,
pointing out the places which must be burnt. Churches, mosques, libraries,
bazaars, houses, all were destroyed, and the only thing spared by the flames
was the gallows, which remained standing in the midst of the ruins.
Of the thirty thousand persons who inhabited Janina a few hours
previously, perhaps one half had escaped. But these had not fled many
leagues before they encountered the outposts of the Ottoman army, which,
instead of helping or protecting them, fell upon them, plundered them, and
drove them towards the camp, where slavery awaited them. The unhappy
fugitives, taken thus between fire and sword, death behind and slavery
before, uttered a terrible cry, and fled in all directions. Those who escaped
the Turks were stopped in the hill passes by the mountaineers rushing
down to the rey; only large numbers who held together could force a
passage.
In some cases terror bestows extraordinary strength; there were mothers
who, with infants at the breast, covered on foot in one day the fourteen
leagues which separate Janina from Arta. But others, seized with the pangs
of travail in the midst of their flight, expired in the woods, after giving birth
to babes, who, destitute of succour, did not survive their mothers. And
young girls, having disfigured themselves by gashes, hid themselves in
caves, where they died of terror and hunger.
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The Albanians, intoxicated with plunder and debauchery, refused to return
to the castle, and only thought of regaining their country and enjoying the
fruit of their rapine. But they were assailed on the way by peasants covetous
of their booty, and by those of Janina who had sought refuge with them. The
roads and passes were strewn with corpses, and the trees by the roadside
converted into gibbets. The murderers did not long survive their victims.
The ruins of Janina were still smoking when, on the 19th August, Pacho Bey
made his entry. Having pitched his tent out of range of Ali's cannon, he
proclaimed aloud the firman which inaugurated him as Pacha of Janina and
Delvino, and then raised the tails, emblem of his dignity. Ali heard on the
summit of his keep the acclamations of the Turks who saluted Pacho Bey,
his former servant with the titles of Vali of Epirus, and Ghazi of Victorius.
After this ceremony, the cadi read the sentence, confirmed by the Mufti,
which declared Tepeleni Veli-Zade to have forfeited his dignities and to be
excommunicated, adding an injunction to all the faithful that henceforth his
name was not to be pronounced except with the addition of "Kara," or
"black," which is bestowed on those cut off from the congregation of
Sunnites, or Orthodox Mohammedans. A Marabout then cast a stone
towards the castle, and the anathema upon "Kara Ali" was repeated by the
whole Turkish army, ending with the cry of "Long live the sultan! So be it!"
But it was not by ecclesiastical thunders that three fortresses could be
reduced, which were defended by artillerymen drawn from different
European armies, who had established an excellent school for gunners and
bombardiers. The besieged, having replied with hootings of contempt to the
acclamations of the besiegers, proceeded to enforce their scorn with well-
aimed cannon shots, while the rebel flotilla, dressed as if for a fete-day,
passed slowly before the Turks, saluting them with cannon-shot if they
ventured near the edge of the lake.
This noisy rhodomontade did not prevent Ali from being consumed with grief
and anxiety. The sight of his own troops, now in the camp of Pacho Bey, the
fear of being for ever separated from his sons, the thought of his grandson in
the enemy's hands, all threw him into the deepest melancholy, and his
sleepless eyes were constantly drowned in tears. He refused his food, and
sat for seven days with untrimmed beard, clad in mourning, on a mat at the
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door of his antechamber, extending his hands to his soldiers, and imploring
them to slay him rather than abandon him. His wives, seeing him in this
state, and concluding all was lost, filled the air with their lamentations. All
began to think that grief would bring Ali to the grave; but his soldiers, to
whose protestations he at first refused any credit, represented to him that
their fate was indissolubly linked with his. Pacho Bey having proclaimed
that all taken in arms for Ali would be shot as sharers in rebellion, it was
therefore their interest to support his resistance with all their power. They
also pointed out that the campaign was already advanced, and that the
Turkish army, which had forgotten its siege artillery at Constantinople,
could not possibly procure any before the end of October, by which time the
rains would begin, and the enemy would probably be short of food.
Moreover, in any case, it being impossible to winter in a ruined town, the foe
would be driven to seek shelter at a distance.
These representations, made with warm conviction, and supported by
evidence, began to soothe the restless fever which was wasting Ali, and the
gentle caresses and persuasions of Basillisa, the beautiful Christian captive,
who had now been his wife for some time, completed the cure.
At the same time his sister Chainitza gave him an astonishing example of
courage. She had persisted, in spite of all that could be said, in residing in
her castle of Libokovo. The population, whom she had cruelly oppressed,
demanded her death, but no one dared attack her. Superstition declared
that the spirit of her mother, with whom she kept up a mysterious
communication even beyond the portals of the grave, watched over her
safety. The menacing form of Kamco had, it was said, appeared to several
inhabitants of Tepelen, brandishing bones of the wretched Kardikiotes, and
demanding fresh victims with loud cries. The desire of vengeance had urged
some to brave these unknown dangers, and twice, a warrior, clothed in
black, had warned them back, forbidding them to lay hands on a
sacrilegious woman; whose punishment Heaven reserved to itself, and twice
they had returned upon their footsteps.
But soon, ashamed of their terror, they attempted another attack, and came
attired in the colour of the Prophet. This time no mysterious stranger
appeared to forbid their passage, and with a cry they climbed the mountain
listening for any supernatural warning. Nothing disturbed the silence and
solitude save the bleating of flocks and the cries of birds of prey. Arrived on
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the platform of Libokovo, they prepared in silence to surprise the guards,
believing the castle full of them. They approached crawling, like hunters who
stalk a deer. Already they had reached the gate of the enclosure, and
prepared to burst it open, when lo! it opened of itself, and they beheld
Chainitza standing before them, a carabine in her hand, pistols in her belt,
and, for all guard, two large dogs.
"Halt! ye daring ones," she cried; "neither my life nor my treasure will ever
be at your mercy. Let one of you move a step without my permission, and
this place and the ground beneath your feet will engulf you. Ten thousand
pounds of powder are in these cellars. I will, however, grant your pardon,
unworthy though you are. I will even allow you to take these sacks filled
with gold; they may recompense you for the losses which my brother's
enemies have recently inflicted on you. But depart this instant without a
word, and dare not to trouble me again; I have other means of destruction at
command besides gunpowder. Life is nothing to me, remember that; but
your mountains may yet at my command become the tomb of your wives
and children. Go!"
She ceased, and her would-be murderers fled in terror.
Shortly after the plague broke out in these mountains, Chainitza had
distributed infected garments among gipsies, who scattered contagion
wherever they went.
"We are indeed of the same blood!" cried Ali with pride, when he heard of his
sister's conduct; and from that hour he appeared to regain all the fire and
audacity of his youth. When, a few days later, he was informed that Mouktar
and Veli, seduced by the brilliant promises of Pacha Bey, had surrendered
Prevesa and Argyro-Castron, "It does not surprise me," he observed coldly. "I
have long known them to be unworthy of being my sons, and henceforth my
only children and heirs are those who defend my cause." And on hearing a
report that both had been beheaded by Pacha Bey's order, he contented
himself with saying, "They betrayed their father, and have only received their
deserts; speak no more of them." And to show how little it discouraged him,
he redoubled his fire upon the Turks.
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But the latter, who had at length obtained some artillery, answered his fire
with vigour, and began to rally to discrown the old pacha's fortress. Feeling
that the danger was pressing, Ali redoubled both his prudence and activity.
His immense treasures were the real reason of the war waged against him,
and these might induce his own soldiers to rebel, in order to become
masters of them. He resolved to protect them from either surprise or
conquest. The sum necessary for present use was deposited in the powder
magazine, so that, if driven to extremity, it might be destroyed in a moment;
the remainder was enclosed in strong-boxes, and sunk in different parts of
the lake. This labour lasted a fortnight, when, finally, Ali put to death the
gipsies who had been employed about it, in order that the secret might
remain with himself.
While he thus set his own affairs in order, he applied himself to the
troubling those of his adversary. A great number of Suliots had joined the
Ottoman army in order to assist in the destruction of him who formerly had
ruined their country. Their camp, which for a long time had enjoyed
immunity from the guns of Janina, was one day overwhelmed with bombs.
The Suliots were terrified, until they remarked that the bombs did not burst.
They then, much astonished, proceeded to pick up and examine these
projectiles. Instead of a match, they found rolls of paper enclosed in a
wooden cylinder, on which was engraved these words, "Open carefully." The
paper contained a truly Macchiavellian letter from Ali, which began by
saying that they were quite justified in having taken up arms against him,
and added that he now sent them a part of the pay of which the traitorous
Ismail was defrauding them, and that the bombs thrown into their
cantonment contained six thousand sequins in gold. He begged them to
amuse Ismail by complaints and recriminations, while his gondola should
by night fetch one of them, to whom he would communicate what more he
had to say. If they accepted his proposition, they were to light three fires as
a signal.
The signal was not long in appearing. Ali despatched his barge, which took
on board a monk, the spiritual chief of the Suliots. He was clothed in
sackcloth, and repeated the prayers for the dying, as one going to execution.
Ali, however, received him with the utmost cordiality: He assured the priest
of his repentance, his good intentions, his esteem for the Greek captains,
and then gave him a paper which startled him considerably. It was a
despatch, intercepted by Ali, from Khalid Effendi to the Seraskier Ismail,
ordering the latter to exterminate all Christians capable of bearing arms. All
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male children were to be circumcised, and brought up to form a legion
drilled in European fashion; and the letter went on to explain how the
Suliots, the Armatolis, the Greek races of the mainland and those of the
Archipelago should be disposed of. Seeing the effect produced on the monk
by the perusal of this paper, Ali hastened to make him the most
advantageous offers, declaring that his own wish was to give Greece a
political existence, and only requiring that the Suliot captains should send
him a certain number of their children as hostages. He then had cloaks and
arms brought which he presented to the monk, dismissing him in haste, in
order that darkness might favour his return.
The next day Ali was resting, with his head on Basilissa's lap, when he was
informed that the enemy was advancing upon the intrenchments which had
been raised in the midst of the ruins of Janina. Already the outposts had
been forced, and the fury of the assailants threatened to triumph over all
obstacles. Ali immediately ordered a sortie of all his troops, announcing that
he himself would conduct it. His master of the horse brought him the
famous Arab charger called the Dervish, his chief huntsman presented him
with his guns, weapons still famous in Epirus, where they figure in the
ballads of the Skipetars. The first was an enormous gun, of Versailles
manufacture, formerly presented by the conqueror of the Pyramids to
Djezzar, the Pacha of St. Jean-d'Arc, who amused himself by enclosing living
victims in the walls of his palace, in order that he might hear their groans in
the midst of his festivities. Next came a carabine given to the Pacha of
Janina in the name of Napoleon in 1806; then the battle musket of Charles
XII of Sweden, and finally--the much revered sabre of Krim-Guerai. The
signal was given; the draw bridge crossed; the Guegues and other
adventurers uttered a terrific shout; to which the cries of the assailants
replied. Ali placed himself on a height, whence his eagle eye sought to
discern the hostile chiefs; but he called and defied Pacho Bey in vain.
Perceiving Hassan-Stamboul, colonel of the Imperial bombardiers outside
his battery, Ali demanded the gun of Djezzar, and laid him dead on the spot.
He then took the carabine of Napoleon, and shot with it Kekriman, Bey of
Sponga, whom he had formerly appointed Pacha of Lepanto. The enemy now
became aware of his presence, and sent a lively fusillade in his direction;
but the balls seemed to diverge from his person. As soon as the smoke
cleared, he perceived Capelan, Pacha of Croie, who had been his guest, and
wounded him mortally in the chest. Capelan uttered a sharp cry, and his
terrified horse caused disorder in the ranks. Ali picked off a large number of
officers, one after another; every shot was mortal, and his enemies began to
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regard him in the light of a destroying angel. Disorder spread through the
forces of the Seraskier, who retreated hastily to his intrenchments.
The Suliots meanwhile sent a deputation to Ismail offering their submission,
and seeking to regain their country in a peaceful manner; but, being
received by him with the most humiliating contempt, they resolved to make
common cause with Ali. They hesitated over the demand for hostages, and
at length required Ali's grandson, Hussien Pacha, in exchange. After many
difficulties, Ali at length consented, and the agreement was concluded. The
Suliots received five hundred thousand piastres and a hundred and fifty
charges of ammunition; Hussien Pacha was given up to them, and they left
the Ottoman camp at dead of night. Morco Botzaris remained with three
hundred and twenty men, threw down the palisades, and then ascending
Mount Paktoras with his troops, waited for dawn in order to announce his
defection to the Turkish army. As soon as the sun appeared he ordered a
general salvo of artillery and shouted his war-cry. A few Turks in charge of
an outpost were slain, the rest fled. A cry of "To arms" was raised, and the
standard of the Cross floated before the camp of the infidels.
Signs and omens of a coming general insurrection appeared on all sides;
there was no lack of prodigies, visions, or popular rumours, and the
Mohammedans became possessed with the idea that the last hour of their
rule in Greece had struck. Ali Pacha favoured the general demoralisation;
and his agents, scattered throughout the land, fanned the flame of revolt.
Ismail Pacha was deprived of his title of Seraskier, and superseded by
Kursheed Pacha. As soon as Ali heard this, he sent a messenger to
Kursheed, hoping to influence him in his favour. Ismail, distrusting the
Skipetars, who formed part of his troops, demanded hostages from them.
The Skipetars were indignant, and Ali, hearing of their discontent, wrote
inviting them to return to him, and endeavouring to dazzle them by the most
brilliant promises. These overtures were received by the offended troops with
enthusiasm, and Alexis Noutza, Ali's former general, who had forsaken him
for Ismail, but who had secretly returned to his allegiance and acted as a
spy on the Imperial army, was deputed to treat with him. As soon as he
arrived, Ali began to enact a comedy in the intention of rebutting the
accusation of incest with his daughter-in-law Zobeide; for this charge,
which, since Veli himself had revealed the secret of their common shame,
could only be met by vague denials, had never ceased to produce a most
unfavourable impression on Noutza's mind. Scarcely had he entered the
castle by the lake, when Ali rushed to meet him, and flung himself into his
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arms. In presence of his officers and the garrison, he loaded him with the
most tender names, calling him his son, his beloved Alexis, his own
legitimate child, even as Salik Pacha. He burst into tears, and, with terrible
oaths, called Heaven to witness that Mouktar and Veli, whom he disavowed
on account of their cowardice, were the adulterous offspring of Emineh's
amours. Then, raising his hand against the tomb of her whom he had loved
so much, he drew the stupefied Noutza into the recess of a casemate, and
sending for Basilissa, presented him to her as a beloved son, whom only
political considerations had compelled him to keep at a distance, because,
being born of a Christian mother, he had been brought up in the faith of
Jesus.
Having thus softened the suspicions of his soldiers, Ali resumed his
underground intrigues. The Suliots had informed him that the sultan had
made them extremely advantageous offers if they would return to his
service, and they demanded pressingly that Ali should give up to them the
citadel of Kiapha, which was still in his possession, and which commanded
Suli. He replied with the information that he intended, January 26, to attack
the camp of Pacho Bey early in the morning, and requested their assistance.
In order to cause a diversion, they were to descend into the valley of Janina
at night, and occupy a position which he pointed out to them, and he gave
them the word "flouri" as password for the night. If successful, he undertook
to grant their request.
Ali's letter was intercepted, and fell into Ismail's hands, who immediately
conceived a plan for snaring his enemy in his own toils. When the night
fixed by Ali arrived, the Seraskier marched out a strong division under the
command of Omar Brionis, who had been recently appointed Pacha, and
who was instructed to proceed along the western slope of Mount Paktoras as
far as the village of Besdoune, where he was to place an outpost, and then
to retire along the other side of the mountain, so that, being visible in the
starlight, the sentinels placed to watch on the hostile towers might take his
men for the Suliots and report to Ali that the position of Saint-Nicolas,
assigned to them, had been occupied as arranged. All preparations for battle
were made, and the two mortal enemies, Ismail and Ali, retired to rest, each
cherishing the darling hope of shortly annihilating his rival.
At break of day a lively cannonade, proceeding from the castle of the lake
and from Lithoritza, announced that the besieged intended a sortie. Soon
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Ali's Skipetars, preceded by a detachment of French, Italians, and Swiss,
rushed through the Ottoman fire and carried the first redoubt, held by
Ibrahim-Aga-Stamboul. They found six pieces of cannon, which the Turks,
notwithstanding their terror, had had time to spike. This misadventure, for
they had hoped to turn the artillery against the intrenched camp, decided
Ali's men on attacking the second redoubt, commanded by the chief
bombardier. The Asiatic troops of Baltadgi Pacha rushed to its defence. At
their head appeared the chief Imaun of the army, mounted on a richly
caparisoned mule and repeating the curse fulminated by the mufti against
Ali, his adherents, his castles, and even his cannons, which it was supposed
might be rendered harmless by these adjurations. Ali's Mohammedan
Skipetars averted their eyes, and spat into their bosoms, hoping thus to
escape the evil influence. A superstitious terror was beginning to spread
among them, when a French adventurer took aim at the Imaun and brought
him down, amid the acclamations of the soldiers; whereupon the Asiatics,
imagining that Eblis himself fought against them, retired within the
intrenchments, whither the Skipetars, no longer fearing the curse, pursued
them vigorously.
At the same time, however, a very different action was proceeding at the
northern end of the besiegers' intrenchments. Ali left his castle of the lake,
preceded by twelve torch-bearers carrying braziers filled with lighted pitch-
wood, and advanced towards the shore of Saint-Nicolas, expecting to unite
with the Suliots. He stopped in the middle of the ruins to wait for sunrise,
and while there heard that his troops had carried the battery of Ibrahim-
Aga-Stamboul. Overjoyed, he ordered them to press on to the second
intrenchment, promising that in an hour, when he should have been joined
by the Suliots, he would support them, and he then pushed forward,
preceded by two field-pieces with their waggons, and followed by fifteen
hundred men, as far as a large plateau on which he perceived at a little
distance an encampment which he supposed to be that of the Suliots. He
then ordered the Mirdite prince, Kyr Lekos, to advance with an escort of
twenty-five men, and when within hearing distance to wave a blue flag and
call out the password. An Imperial officer replied with the countersign
"flouri," and Lekos immediately sent back word to Ali to advance. His orderly
hastened back, and the prince entered the camp, where he and his escort
were immediately surrounded and slain.
On receiving the message, Ali began to advance, but cautiously, being
uneasy at seeing no signs of the Mirdite troop. Suddenly, furious cries, and
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a lively fusillade, proceeding from the vineyards and thickets, announced
that he had fallen into a trap, and at the same moment Omar Pacha fell
upon his advance guard, which broke, crying "Treason!"
Ali sabred the fugitives mercilessly, but fear carried them away, and, forced
to follow the crowd, he perceived the Kersales and Baltadgi Pacha
descending the side of Mount Paktoras, intending to cut off his retreat. He
attempted another route, hastening towards the road to Dgeleva, but found
it held by the Tapagetae under the Bimbashi Aslon of Argyro-Castron. He
was surrounded; all seemed lost, and feeling that his last hour had come, he
thought only of selling his life as dearly as possible. Collecting his bravest
soldiers round him, he prepared for a last rush on Omar Pacha, when,
suddenly, with an inspiration born of despair, he ordered his ammunition
waggons to be blown up. The Kersales, who were about to seize them,
vanished in the explosion, which scattered a hail of stones and debris far
and wide. Under cover of the smoke and general confusion, Ali succeeded in
withdrawing his men to the shelter of the guns of his castle of Litharitza,
where he continued the fight in order to give time to the fugitives to rally,
and to give the support he had promised to those fighting on the other slope;
who, in the meantime, had carried the second battery and were attacking
the fortified camp. Here the Seraskier Ismail met them with a resistance so
well managed, that he was able to conceal the attack he was preparing to
make on their rear. Ali, guessing that the object of Ismail's manoeuvres was
to crush those whom he had promised to help, and unable, on account of
the distance, either to support or to warn them, endeavoured to impede
Omar pacha, hoping still that his Skipetars might either see or hear him. He
encouraged the fugitives, who recognised him from afar by his scarlet
dolman, by the dazzling whiteness of his horse, and by the terrible cries
which he uttered; for, in the heat of battle, this extraordinary man appeared
to have regained the vigour and audacity of his youth. Twenty times he led
his soldiers to the charge, and as often was forced to recoil towards his
castles. He brought up his reserves, but in vain. Fate had declared against
him. His troops which were attacking the intrenched camp found themselves
taken between two fires, and he could not help them. Foaming with passion,
he threatened to rush singly into the midst of his enemies. His officers
besought him to calm himself, and, receiving only refusals, at last
threatened to lay hands upon him if he persisted in exposing himself like a
private soldier. Subdued by this unaccustomed opposition, Ali allowed
himself to be forced back into the castle by the lake, while his soldiers
dispersed in various directions.
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But even this defeat did not discourage the fierce pacha. Reduced to
extremity, he yet entertained the hope of shaking the Ottoman Empire, and
from the recesses of his fortress he agitated the whole of Greece. The
insurrection which he had stirred up, without foreseeing what the results
might be, was spreading with the rapidity of a lighted train of powder, and
the Mohammedans were beginning to tremble, when at length Kursheed
pacha, having crossed the Pindus at the head of an army of eighty thousand
men, arrived before Janina.
His tent had hardly been pitched, when Ali caused a salute of twenty-one
guns to be fired in his honour, and sent a messenger, bearing a letter of
congratulation on his safe arrival. This letter, artful and insinuating, was
calculated to make a deep impression on Kursheed. Ali wrote that, being
driven by the infamous lies of a former servant, called Pacho Bey, into
resisting, not indeed the authority of the sultan, before whom he humbly
bent his head weighed down with years and grief, but the perfidious plots of
His Highness's advisers, he considered himself happy in his misfortunes to
have dealings with a vizier noted for his lofty qualities. He then added that
these rare merits had doubtless been very far from being estimated at their
proper value by a Divan in which men were only classed in accordance with
the sums they laid out in gratifying the rapacity of the ministers. Otherwise,
how came it about that Kursheed pacha, Viceroy of Egypt--after the
departure of the French, the conqueror of the Mamelukes, was only
rewarded for these services by being recalled without a reason? Having been
twice Romili-Valicy, why, when he should have enjoyed the reward of his
labours, was he relegated to the obscure post of Salonica? And, when
appointed Grand Vizier and sent to pacify Servia, instead of being entrusted
with the government of this kingdom which he had reconquered for the
sultan, why was he hastily despatched to Aleppo to repress a trifling sedition
of emirs and janissaries? Now, scarcely arrived in the Morea, his powerful
arm was to be employed against an aged man.
Ali then plunged into details, related the pillaging, avarice, and imperious
dealing of Pacho Bey, as well as of the pachas subordinate to him; how they
had alienated the public mind, how they had succeeded in offending the
Armatolis, and especially the Suliots, who might be brought back to their
duty with less trouble than these imprudent chiefs had taken to estrange
them. He gave a mass of special information on this subject, and explained
that in advising the Suliots to retire to their mountains he had really only
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put them in a false position as long as he retained possession of the fort of
Kiapha, which is the key of the Selleide.
The Seraskier replied in a friendly manner, ordered the military salute to be
returned in Ali's honour, shot for shot, and forbade that henceforth a person
of the valour and intrepidity of the Lion of Tepelen should be described by
the epithet of "excommunicated." He also spoke of him by his title of "vizier,"
which he declared he had never forfeited the right to use; and he also stated
that he had only entered Epirus as a peace-maker. Kursheed's emissaries
had just seized some letters sent by Prince Alexander Ypsilanti to the Greek
captains at Epirus. Without going into details of the events which led to the
Greek insurrection, the prince advised the Polemarchs, chiefs of the Selleid,
to aid Ali Pacha in his revolt against the Porte, but to so arrange matters
that they could easily detach themselves again, their only aim being to seize
his treasures, which might be used to procure the freedom of Greece.
These letters a messenger from Kursheed delivered to Ali. They produced
such an impression upon his mind that he secretly resolved only to make
use of the Greeks, and to sacrifice them to his own designs, if he could not
inflict a terrible vengeance on their perfidy. He heard from the messenger at
the same time of the agitation in European Turkey, the hopes of the
Christians, and the apprehension of a rupture between the Porte and
Russia. It was necessary to lay aside vain resentment and to unite against
these threatening dangers. Kursheed Pacha was, said his messenger, ready
to consider favourably any propositions likely to lead to a prompt
pacification, and would value such a result far more highly than the glory of
subduing by means of the imposing force at his command, a valiant prince
whom he had always regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks of the
Ottoman Empire. This information produced a different effect upon Ali to
that intended by the Seraskier. Passing suddenly from the depth of
despondency to the height of pride, he imagined that these overtures of
reconciliation were only a proof of the inability of his foes to subdue him,
and he sent the following propositions to Kursheed Pacha:
"If the first duty of a prince is to do justice, that of his subjects is to remain
faithful, and obey him in all things. From this principle we derive that of
rewards and punishments, and although my services might sufficiently
justify my conduct to all time, I nevertheless acknowledge that I have
deserved the wrath of the sultan, since he has raised the arm of his anger
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against the head of his slave. Having humbly implored his pardon, I fear not
to invoke his severity towards those who have abused his confidence. With
this object I offer--First, to pay the expenses of the war and the tribute in
arrears due from my Government without delay. Secondly, as it is important
for the sake of example that the treason of an inferior towards his superior
should receive fitting chastisement, I demand that Pacho Bey, formerly in
my service, should be beheaded, he being the real rebel, and the cause of
the public calamities which are afflicting the faithful of Islam. Thirdly, I
require that for the rest of my life I shall retain, without annual re-
investiture, my pachalik of Janina, the coast of Epirus, Acarnania and its
dependencies, subject to the rights, charges and tribute due now and
hereafter to the sultan. Fourthly, I demand amnesty and oblivion of the past
for all those who have served me until now. And if these conditions are not
accepted without modifications, I am prepared to defend myself to the last.
"Given at the castle of Janina, March 7, 1821."
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Chapter 10
This mixture of arrogance and submission only merited indignation, but it
suited Kursheed to dissemble. He replied that, assenting to such
propositions being beyond his powers, he would transmit them to
Constantinople, and that hostilities might be suspended, if Ali wished, until
the courier could return.
Being quite as cunning as Ali himself, Kursheed profited by the truce to
carry on intrigues against him. He corrupted one of the chiefs of the
garrison, Metzo-Abbas by name, who obtained pardon for himself and fifty
followers, with permission to return to their homes. But this clemency
appeared to have seduced also four hundred Skipetars who made use of the
amnesty and the money with which Ali provided them, to raise Toxis and the
Tapygetae in the latter's favour. Thus the Seraskier's scheme turned against
himself, and he perceived he had been deceived by Ali's seeming apathy,
which certainly did not mean dread of defection. In fact, no man worth
anything could have abandoned him, supported as he seemed to be by
almost supernatural courage. Suffering from a violent attack of gout, a
malady he had never before experienced, the pacha, at the age of eighty-one,
was daily carried to the most exposed place on the ramparts of his castle.
There, facing the hostile batteries, he gave audience to whoever wished to
see him. On this exposed platform he held his councils, despatched orders,
and indicated to what points his guns should be directed. Illumined by the
flashes of fire, his figure assumed fantastic and weird shapes. The balls
sung in the air, the bullets hailed around him, the noise drew blood from
the ears of those with him. Calm and immovable, he gave signals to the
soldiers who were still occupying part of the ruins of Janina, and
encouraged them by voice and gesture. Observing the enemy's movements
by the help of a telescope, he improvised means of counteracting them.
Sometimes he amused himself by greeting curious persons and new-comers
after a fashion of his own. Thus the chancellor of the French Consul at
Prevesa, sent as an envoy to Kursheed Pacha, had scarcely entered the
lodging assigned to him, when he was visited by a bomb which caused him
to leave it again with all haste. This greeting was due to Ali's chief engineer,
Caretto, who next day sent a whole shower of balls and shells into the midst
of a group of Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them to Tika, where
Kursheed was forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these
contemptible gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become
uncomfortable. I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about.
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Frangistan (Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my
fall, which will leave it considerable trouble to pacify." Then, after a
moment's silence, he ordered the public criers to inform his soldiers of the
insurrections in Wallachia and the Morea, which news, proclaimed from the
ramparts, and spreading immediately in the Imperial camp, caused there
much dejection.
The Greeks were now everywhere proclaiming their independence, and
Kursheed found himself unexpectedly surrounded by enemies. His position
threatened to become worse if the siege of Janina dragged on much longer.
He seized the island in the middle of the lake, and threw up redoubts upon
it, whence he kept up an incessant fire on the southern front of the castle of
Litharitza, and, a practicable trench of nearly forty feet having been made,
an assault was decided on. The troops marched out boldly, and performed
prodigies of valour; but at the end of an hour, Ali, carried on a litter because
of his gout, having led a sortie, the besiegers were compelled to give way and
retire to their intrenchments, leaving three hundred dead at the foot of the
rampart. "The Pindian bear is yet alive," said Ali in a message to Kursheed;
"thou mayest take thy dead and bury them; I give them up without ransom,
and as I shall always do when thou attackest me as a brave man ought."
Then, having entered his fortress amid the acclamations of his soldiers, he
remarked on hearing of the general rising of Greece and the Archipelago, "It
is enough! two men have ruined Turkey!" He then remained silent, and
vouchsafed no explanation of this prophetic sentence.
Ali did not on this occasion manifest his usual delight on having gained a
success. As soon as he was alone with Basilissa, he informed her with tears
of the death of Chainitza. A sudden apoplexy had stricken this beloved
sister, the life of his councils, in her palace of Libokovo, where she remained
undisturbed until her death. She owed this special favour to her riches and
to the intercession of her nephew, Djiladin Pacha of Ochcrida, who was
reserved by fate to perform the funeral obsequies of the guilty race of
Tepelen.
A few months afterwards, Ibrahim Pacha of Berat died of poison, being the
last victim whom Chainitza had demanded from her brother.
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Ali's position was becoming daily more difficult, when the time of Ramadan
arrived, during which the Turks relax hostilities, and a species of truce
ensued. Ali himself appeared to respect the old popular customs, and
allowed his Mohammedan soldiers to visit the enemy's outposts and confer
on the subject of various religious ceremonies. Discipline was relaxed in
Kursheed's camp, and Ali profited thereby to ascertain the smallest details
of all that passed.
He learned from his spies that the general's staff, counting on the "Truce of
God," a tacit suspension of all hostilities during the feast of Bairam, the
Mohammedan Easter, intended to repair to the chief mosque, in the quarter
of Loutcha. This building, spared by the bombs, had until now been
respected by both sides. Ali, according to reports spread by himself, was
supposed to be ill, weakened by fasting, and terrified into a renewal of
devotion, and not likely to give trouble on so sacred a day. Nevertheless he
ordered Caretto to turn thirty guns against the mosque, cannon, mortars
and howitzers, intending, he said, to solemnise Bairam by discharges of
artillery. As soon as he was sure that the whole of the staff had entered the
mosque, he gave the signal.
Instantly, from the assembled thirty pieces, there issued a storm of shells,
grenades and cannon-balls. With a terrific noise, the mosque crumbled
together, amid the cries of pain and rage of the crowd inside crushed in the
ruins. At the end of a quarter of an hour the wind dispersed the smoke, and
disclosed a burning crater, with the large cypresses which surrounded the
building blazing as if they had been torches lighted for the funeral
ceremonies of sixty captains and two hundred soldiers.
"Ali Pacha is yet alive!" cried the old Homeric hero of Janina, leaping with
joy; and his words, passing from mouth to mouth, spread yet more terror
amid Kursheed's soldiers, already overwhelmed by the horrible spectacle
passing before their eyes.
Almost on the same day, Ali from the height of his keep beheld the standard
of the Cross waving in the distance. The rebellious Greeks were bent on
attacking Kursheed. The insurrection promoted by the Vizier of Janina had
passed far beyond the point he intended, and the rising had become a
revolution. The delight which Ali first evinced cooled rapidly before this
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consideration, and was extinguished in grief when he found that a
conflagration, caused by the besiegers' fire, had consumed part of his store
in the castle by the lake. Kursheed, thinking that this event must have
shaken the old lion's resolution, recommenced negotiations, choosing the
Kiaia of Moustai Pacha: as an envoy, who gave Ali a remarkable warning.
"Reflect," said he, "that these rebels bear the sign of the Cross on their
standards. You are now only an instrument in their hands. Beware lest you
become the victim of their policy." Ali understood the danger, and had the
sultan been better advised, he would have pardoned Ali on condition of
again bringing Hellas under his iron yoke. It is possible that the Greeks
might not have prevailed against an enemy so formidable and a brain so
fertile in intrigue. But so simple an idea was far beyond the united intellect
of the Divan, which never rose above idle display. As soon as these
negotiations had commenced, Kursheed filled the roads with his couriers,
sending often two in a day to Constantinople, from whence as many were
sent to him. This state of things lasted more than three weeks, when it
became known that Ali, who had made good use of his time in replacing the
stores lost in the conflagration, buying actually from the Kiaia himself a part
of the provisions brought by him for the Imperial camp, refused to accept
the Ottoman ultimatum. Troubles which broke out at the moment of the
rupture of the negotiations proved that he foresaw the probable result.
Kursheed was recompensed for the deception by which he had been duped
by the reduction of the fortress of Litharitza. The Guegue Skipetars, who
composed the garrison, badly paid, wearied out by the long siege, and won
by the Seraskier's bribes, took advantage of the fact that the time of their
engagement with Ali had elapsed some months previously, and, delivering
up the fortress they defended, passed over to the enemy. Henceforth Ali's
force consisted of only six hundred men.
It was to be feared that this handful of men might also become a prey to
discouragement, and might surrender their chief to an enemy who had
received all fugitives with kindness. The Greek insurgents dreaded such an
event, which would have turned all Kursheed's army, hitherto detained
before the castle, of Janina loose upon themselves. Therefore they hastened
to send to their former enemy, now their ally, assistance which he declined
to accept. Ali saw himself surrounded by enemies thirsting for his wealth,
and his avarice increasing with the danger, he had for some months past
refused to pay his defenders. He contented himself with informing his
captains of the insurgents' offer, and telling them that he was confident that
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bravery such as theirs required no reinforcement. And when some of them
besought him to at least receive two or three hundred Palikars into the
castle, "No," said he; "old serpents always remain old serpents: I distrust the
Suliots and their friendship."
Ignorant of Ali's decision, the Greeks of the Selleid were advancing, as well
as the Toxidae, towards Janina, when they received the following letter from
Ali Pacha:
"My well-beloved children, I have just learned that you are preparing to
despatch a party of your Palikars against our common enemy, Kursheed. I
desire to inform you that this my fortress is impregnable, and that I can
hold out against him for several years. The only service I require of your
courage is that you should reduce Arta, and take alive Ismail Pacho Bey, my
former servant, the mortal enemy of my family, and the author of the evils
and frightful calamities which have so long oppressed our unhappy country,
which he has laid waste before our eyes. Use your best efforts to accomplish
this; it will strike at the root of the evil, and my treasures shall reward your
Palikars, whose courage every day gains a higher value in my eyes."
Furious at this mystification, the Suliots retired to their mountains, and
Kursheed profited by the discontent Ali's conduct had caused, to win over
the Toxide Skipetars, with their commanders Tahir Abbas and Hagi
Bessiaris, who only made two conditions: one, that Ismail Pacho Bey, their
personal enemy, should be deposed; the other, that the life of their old vizier
should be respected.
The first condition was faithfully adhered to by Kursheed, actuated by
private motives different from those which he gave publicly, and Ismail
Pacho Bey was solemnly deposed. The tails, emblems of his authority, were
removed; he resigned the plumes of office; his soldiers forsook him, his
servants followed suit. Fallen to the lowest rank, he was soon thrown into
prison, where he only blamed Fate for his misfortunes. All the Skipetar Agas
hastened to place themselves under Kursheed's standard, and enormous
forces now threatened Janina. All Epirus awaited the denoument with
anxiety.
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Had he been less avaricious, Ali might have enlisted all the adventurers with
whom the East was swarming, and made the sultan tremble in his capital.
But the aged pacha clung passionately to his treasures. He feared also,
perhaps not unreasonably, that those by whose aid he might triumph would
some day become his master. He long deceived himself with the idea that
the English, who had sold Parga to him, would never allow a Turkish fleet to
enter the Ionian Sea. Mistaken on this point, his foresight was equally at
fault with regard to the cowardice of his sons. The defection of his troops
was not less fatal, and he only understood the bearing of the Greek
insurrection which he himself had provoked, so far as to see that in this
struggle he was merely an instrument in procuring the freedom of a country
which he had too cruelly oppressed to be able to hold even an inferior rank
in it. His last letter to the Suliots opened the eyes of his followers, but under
the influence of a sort of polite modesty these were at least anxious to
stipulate for the life of their vizier. Kursheed was obliged to produce firmans
from the Porte, declaring that if Ali Tepelen submitted, the royal promise
given to his sons should be kept, and that he should, with them, be
transferred to Asia Minor, as also his harem, his servants; and his
treasures, and allowed to finish his days in peace. Letters from Ali's sons
were shown to the Agas, testifying to the good treatment they had
experienced in their exile; and whether the latter believed all this, or
whether they merely sought to satisfy their own consciences, they
henceforth thought only of inducing their rebellious chief to submit. Finally,
eight months' pay, given them in advance, proved decisive, and they frankly
embraced the cause of the sultan.
The garrison of the castle on the lake, whom Ali seemed anxious to offend as
much as possible, by refusing their pay, he thinking them so compromised
that they would not venture even to accept an amnesty guaranteed by the
mufti, began to desert as soon as they knew the Toxidae had arrived at the
Imperial camp. Every night these Skipetars who could cross the moat betook
themselves to Kursheed's quarters. One single man yet baffled all the efforts
of the besiegers. The chief engineer, Caretto, like another Archimedes, still
carried terror into the midst of their camp.
Although reduced to the direst misery, Caretto could not forget that he owed
his life to the master who now only repaid his services with the most sordid
ingratitude. When he had first come to Epirus, Ali, recognising his ability,
became anxious to retain him, but without incurring any expense. He
ascertained that the Neapolitan was passionately in love with a
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Mohammedan girl named Nekibi, who returned his affection. Acting under
Ali's orders, Tahir Abbas accused the woman before the cadi of sacrilegious
intercourse with an infidel. She could only escape death by the apostasy of
her lover; if he refused to deny his God, he shared her fate, and both would
perish at the stake. Caretto refused to renounce his religion, but only Nekibi
suffered death. Caretto was withdrawn from execution, and Ali kept him
concealed in a place of safety, whence he produced him in the time of need.
No one had served him with greater zeal; it is even possible that a man of
this type would have died at his post, had his cup not been filled with
mortification and insult.
Eluding the vigilance of Athanasius Vaya, whose charge it was to keep guard
over him, Caretto let himself down by a cord fastened to the end of a
cannon: He fell at the foot of the rampart, and thence dragged himself, with
a broken arm, to the opposite camp. He had become nearly blind through
the explosion of a cartridge which had burnt his face. He was received as
well as a Christian from whom there was now nothing to fear, could expect.
He received the bread of charity, and as a refugee is only valued in
proportion to the use which can be made of him, he was despised and
forgotten.
The desertion of Caretto was soon followed by a defection which annihilated
Ali's last hopes. The garrison which had given him so many proofs of
devotion, discouraged by his avarice, suffering from a disastrous epidemic,
and no longer equal to the necessary labour in defence of the place, opened
all the gates simultaneously to the enemy. But the besiegers, fearing a trap,
advanced very slowly; so that Ali, who had long prepared against every sort
of surprise, had time to gain a place which he called his "refuge."
It was a sort of fortified enclosure, of solid masonry, bristling with cannon,
which surrounded the private apartments of his seraglio, called the
"Women's Tower." He had taken care to demolish everything which could be
set on fire, reserving only a mosque and the tomb of his wife Emineh, whose
phantom, after announcing an eternal repose, had ceased to haunt him.
Beneath was an immense natural cave, in which he had stored ammunition,
precious articles, provisions, and the treasures which had not been sunk in
the lake. In this cave an apartment had been made for Basilissa and his
harem, also a shelter in which he retired to sleep when exhausted with
fatigue. This place was his last resort, a kind of mausoleum; and he did not
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seem distressed at beholding the castle in the hands of his enemies. He
calmly allowed them to occupy the entrance, deliver their hostages, overrun
the ramparts, count the cannon which were on the platforms, crumbling
from the hostile shells; but when they came within hearing, he demanded by
one of his servants that Kursheed should send him an envoy of distinction;
meanwhile he forbade anyone to pass beyond a certain place which he
pointed out.
Kursheed, imagining that, being in the last extremity, he would capitulate,
sent out Tahir Abbas and Hagi Bessiaris. Ali listened without reproaching
them for their treachery, but simply observed that he wished to meet some
of the chief officers.
The Seraskier then deputed his keeper of the wardrobe, accompanied by his
keeper of the seals and other persons of quality. Ali received them with all
ceremony, and, after the usual compliments had been exchanged, invited
them to descend with him into the cavern. There he showed them more than
two thousand barrels of powder carefully arranged beneath his treasures,
his remaining provisions, and a number of valuable objects which adorned
this slumbering volcano. He showed them also his bedroom, a sort of cell
richly furnished, and close to the powder. It could be reached only by means
of three doors, the secret of which was known to no one but himself.
Alongside of this was the harem, and in the neighbouring mosque was
quartered his garrison, consisting of fifty men, all ready to bury themselves
under the ruins of this fortification, the only spot remaining to him of all
Greece, which had formerly bent beneath his authority.
After this exhibition, Ali presented one of his most devoted followers to the
envoys. Selim, who watched over the fire, was a youth in appearance as
gentle as his heart was intrepid, and his special duty was to be in readiness
to blow up the whole place at any moment. The pacha gave him his hand to
kiss, inquiring if he were ready to die, to which he only responded by
pressing his master's hand fervently to his lips. He never took his eyes off
Ali, and the lantern, near which a match was constantly smoking, was
entrusted only to him and to Ali, who took turns with him in watching it. Ali
drew a pistol from his belt, making as if to turn it towards the powder
magazine, and the envoys fell at his feet, uttering involuntary cries of terror.
He smiled at their fears, and assured them that, being wearied of the weight
of his weapons, he had only intended to relieve himself of some of them. He
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then begged them to seat themselves, and added that he should like even a
more terrible funeral than that which they had just ascribed to him. "I do
not wish to drag down with me," he exclaimed, "those who have come to visit
me as friends; it is Kursheed, whom I have long regarded as my brother, his
chiefs, those who have betrayed me, his whole army in short, whom I desire
to follow me to the tomb--a sacrifice which will be worthy of my renown, and
of the brilliant end to which I aspire."
The envoys gazed at him with stupefaction, which did not diminish when Ali
further informed them that they were not only sitting over the arch of a
casemate filled with two hundred thousand pounds of powder, but that the
whole castle, which they had so rashly occupied, was undermined. "The rest
you have seen," he said, "but of this you could not be aware. My riches are
the sole cause of the war which has been made against me, and in one
moment I can destroy them. Life is nothing to me, I might have ended it
among the Greeks, but could I, a powerless old man, resolve to live on terms
of equality among those whose absolute master I have been? Thus,
whichever way I look, my career is ended. However, I am attached to those
who still surround me, so hear my last resolve. Let a pardon, sealed by the
sultan's hands, be given me, and I will submit. I will go to Constantinople, to
Asia Minor, or wherever I am sent. The things I should see here would no
longer be fitting for me to behold."
To this Kursheed's envoys made answer that without doubt these terms
would be conceded. Ali then touched his breast and forehead, and, drawing
forth his watch, presented it to the keeper of the wardrobe. "I mean what I
say, my friend," he observed; "my word will be kept. If within an hour thy
soldiers are not withdrawn from this castle which has been treacherously
yielded to them, I will blow it up. Return to the Seraskier, warn him that if
he allows one minute more to elapse than the time specified, his army, his
garrison, I myself and my family, will all perish together: two hundred
thousand pounds of powder can destroy all that surrounds us. Take this
watch, I give it thee, and forget not that I am a man of my word." Then,
dismissing the messengers, he saluted them graciously, observing that he
did not expect an answer until the soldiers should have evacuated the
castle.
The envoys had barely returned to the camp when Kursheed sent orders to
abandon the fortress. As the reason far this step could not be concealed,
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everyone, exaggerating the danger, imagined deadly mines ready to be fired
everywhere, and the whole army clamoured to break up the camp. Thus Ali
and his fifty followers cast terror into the hearts of nearly thirty thousand
men, crowded together on the slopes of Janina. Every sound, every whiff of
smoke, ascending from near the castle, became a subject of alarm for the
besiegers. And as the besieged had provisions for a long time, Kursheed saw
little chance of successfully ending his enterprise; when Ali's demand for
pardon occurred to him. Without stating his real plans, he proposed to his
Council to unite in signing a petition to the Divan for Ali's pardon.
This deed, formally executed, and bearing more than sixty signatures, was
then shown to Ali, who was greatly delighted. He was described in it as
Vizier, as Aulic Councillor, and also as the most distinguished veteran
among His Highness the Sultan's slaves. He sent rich presents to Kursheed
and the principal officers, whom he hoped to corrupt, and breathed as
though the storm had passed away. The following night, however, he heard
the voice of Emineh, calling him several times, and concluded that his end
drew nigh.
During the two next nights he again thought he heard Emineh's voice, and
sleep forsook his pillow, his countenance altered, and his endurance
appeared to be giving way. Leaning on a long Malacca cane, he repaired at
early dawn to Emineh's tomb, on which he offered a sacrifice of two spotted
lambs, sent him by Tahir Abbas, whom in return he consented to pardon,
and the letters he received appeared to mitigate his trouble. Some days
later, he saw the keeper of the wardrobe, who encouraged him, saying that
before long there would be good news from Constantinople. Ali learned from
him the disgrace of Pacho Bey, and of Ismail Pliaga, whom he detested
equally, and this exercise of authority, which was made to appear as a
beginning of satisfaction offered him, completely reassured him, and he
made fresh presents to this officer, who had succeeded in inspiring him with
confidence.
Whilst awaiting the arrival of the firman of pardon which Ali was reassured
must arrive from Constantinople without fail, the keeper of the wardrobe
advised him to seek an interview with Kursheed. It was clear that such a
meeting could not take place in the undermined castle, and Ali was
therefore invited to repair to the island in the lake. The magnificent pavilion,
which he had constructed there in happier days, had been entirely
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refurnished, and it was proposed that the conference should take place in
this kiosk.
Ali appeared to hesitate at this proposal, and the keeper of the wardrobe,
wishing to anticipate his objections, added that the object of this
arrangement was to prove to the army, already aware of it, that there was no
longer any quarrel between himself and the commander-in-chief. He added
that Kursheed would go to the conference attended only by members of his
Divan, but that as it was natural an outlawed man should be on his guard,
Ali might, if he liked, send to examine the place, might take with him such
guards as he thought necessary, and might even arrange things on the same
footing as in his citadel, even to his guardian with the lighted match, as the
surest guarantee which could be given him.
The proposition was accepted, and when Ali, having crossed over with a
score of soldiers, found himself more at large than he did in his casemate,
he congratulated himself on having come. He had Basilissa brought over,
also his diamonds; and several chests of money. Two days passed without
his thinking of anything but procuring various necessaries, and he then
began to inquire what caused the Seraskier to delay his visit. The latter
excused himself on the plea of illness, and offered meanwhile to send
anyone Ali might wish to see, to visit him: The pacha immediately mentioned
several of his former followers, now employed in the Imperial army, and as
no difficulty was made in allowing them to go, he profited by the permission
to interview a large number of his old acquaintances, who united in
reassuring him and in giving him great hopes of success.
Nevertheless, time passed on, and neither the Seraskier nor the firman
appeared. Ali, at first uneasy, ended by rarely mentioning either the one or
the other, and never was deceiver more completely deceived. His security
was so great that he loudly congratulated himself on having come to the
island. He had begun to form a net of intrigue to cause himself to be
intercepted on the road when he should be sent to Constantinople, and he
did not despair of soon finding numerous partisans in the Imperial army.
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Chapter 11
For a whole week all seemed going well, when, on the morning of February
5th, Kursheed sent Hassan Pacha to convey his compliments to Ali, and
announce that the sultan's firman, so long desired, had at length arrived.
Their mutual wishes had been heard, but it was desirable, for the dignity of
their sovereign, that Ali, in order to show his gratitude and submission,
should order Selim to extinguish the fatal match and to leave the cave, and
that the rest of the garrison should first display the Imperial standard and
then evacuate the enclosure. Only on this condition could Kursheed deliver
into Ali's hands the sultan's decree of clemency.
Ali was alarmed, and his eyes were at length opened. He replied hesitatingly,
that on leaving the citadel he had charged Selim to obey only his own verbal
order, that no written command, even though signed and sealed by himself,
would produce any effect, and therefore he desired to repair himself to the
castle, in order to fulfil what was required.
Thereupon a long argument ensued, in which Ali's sagacity, skill, and
artifice struggled vainly against a decided line of action. New protestations
were made to deceive him, oaths were even taken on the Koran that no evil
designs, no mental reservations, were entertained. At length, yielding to the
prayers of those who surrounded him, perhaps concluding that all his skill
could no longer fight against Destiny, he finally gave way.
Drawing a secret token from his bosom, he handed it to Kursheed's envoy,
saying, "Go, show this to Selim, and you will convert a dragon into a lamb."
And in fact, at sight of the talisman, Selim prostrated himself, extinguished
the match, and fell, stabbed to the heart. At the same time the garrison
withdrew, the Imperial standard displayed its blazonry, and the lake castle
was occupied by the troops of the Seraskier, who rent the air with their
acclamations.
It was then noon. Ali, in the island, had lost all illusions. His pulse beat
violently, but his countenance did not betray his mental trouble. It was
noticed that he appeared at intervals to be lost in profound thought, that he
yawned frequently, and continually drew his fingers through his beard. He
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drank coffee and iced water several times, incessantly looked at his watch,
and, taking his field-glass, surveyed by turns the camp, the castles of
Janina, the Pindus range, and the peaceful waters of the lake. Occasionally
he glanced at his weapons, and then his eyes sparkled with the fire of youth
and of courage. Stationed beside him, his guards prepared their cartridges,
their eyes fixed on the landing-place.
The kiosk which he occupied was connected with a wooden structure raised
upon pillars, like the open-air theatres constructed for a public festival, and
the women occupied the most remote apartments. Everything seemed sad
and silent. The vizier, according to custom, sat facing the doorway, so as to
be the first to perceive any who might wish to enter. At five o'clock boats
were seen approaching the island, and soon Hassan Pacha, Omar Brionis,
Kursheed's sword-bearer, Mehemet, the keeper of the wardrobe, and several
officers of the army, attended by a numerous suite, drew near with gloomy
countenances.
Seeing them approach, Ali sprang up impetuously, his hand upon the
pistols in his belt. "Stand! . . . what is it you bring me?" he cried to Hassan
in a voice of thunder. "I bring the commands of His Highness the Sultan,--
knowest thou not these august characters?" And Hassan exhibited the
brilliantly gilded frontispiece which decorated the firman. "I know them and
revere them." "Then bow before thy destiny; make thy ablutions; address thy
prayer to Allah and to His Prophet; for thy, head is demanded. . . ." Ali did
not allow him to finish. "My head," he cried with fury, "will not be
surrendered like the head of a slave."
These rapidly pronounced words were instantly followed by a pistol-shot
which wounded Hassan in the thigh. Swift as lightning, a second killed the
keeper of the wardrobe, and the guards, firing at the same time, brought
down several officers. Terrified, the Osmanlis forsook the pavilion. Ali,
perceiving blood flowing from a wound in his chest, roared like a bull with
rage. No one dared to face his wrath, but shots were fired at the kiosk from
all sides, and four of his guards fell dead beside him. He no longer knew
which way to turn, hearing the noise made by the assailants under the
platform, who were firing through the boards on which he stood. A ball
wounded him in the side, another from below lodged in his spine; he
staggered, clung to a window, then fell on the sofa. "Hasten," he cried to one
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of his officers, "run, my friend, and strangle my poor Basilissa; let her not
fall a prey to these infamous wretches."
The door opened, all resistance ceased, the guards hastened to escape by
the windows. Kursheed's sword-bearer entered, followed by the
executioners. "Let the justice of Allah be accomplished!" said a cadi. At these
words the executioners seized Ali, who was still alive, by the beard, and
dragged him out into the porch, where, placing his head on one of the steps,
they separated it from the body with many blows of a jagged cutlass. Thus
ended the career of the dreaded Ali Pacha.
His head still preserved so terrible and imposing an aspect that those
present beheld it with a sort of stupor. Kursheed, to whom it was presented
on a large dish of silver plate, rose to receive it, bowed three times before it,
and respectfully kissed the beard, expressing aloud his wish that he himself
might deserve a similar end. To such an extent did the admiration with
which Ali's bravery inspired these barbarians efface the memory of his
crimes. Kursheed ordered the head to be perfumed with the most costly
essences, and despatched to Constantinople, and he allowed the Skipetars
to render the last honours to their former master.
Never was seen greater mourning than that of the warlike Epirotes. During
the whole night, the various Albanian tribes watched by turns around the
corpse, improvising the most eloquent funeral songs in its honour. At
daybreak, the body, washed and prepared according to the Mohammedan
ritual, was deposited in a coffin draped with a splendid Indian Cashmere
shawl, on which was placed a magnificent turban, adorned with the plumes
Ali had worn in battle. The mane of his charger was cut off, and the animal
covered with purple housings, while Ali's shield, his sword, his numerous
weapons, and various insignia were borne on the saddles of several led
horses. The cortege proceeded towards the castle, accompanied by hearty
imprecations uttered by the soldiers against the "Son of a Slave," the epithet
bestowed on their sultan by the Turks in seasons of popular excitement.
The Selaon-Aga, an officer appointed to render the proper salutes, acted as
chief mourner, surrounded by weeping mourners, who made the ruins of
Janina echo with their lamentations. The guns were fired at long intervals.
The portcullis was raised to admit the procession, and the whole garrison,
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drawn up to receive it, rendered a military salute. The body, covered with
matting, was laid in a grave beside that of Amina. When the grave had been
filled in, a priest approached to listen to the supposed conflict between the
good and bad angels, who dispute the possession of the soul of the
deceased. When he at length announced that Ali Tepelen Zadi would repose
in peace amid celestial houris, the Skipetars, murmuring like the waves of
the sea after a tempest, dispersed to their quarters.
Kursheed, profiting by the night spent by the Epirotes in mourning, caused
Ali's head to be enclosed in a silver casket, and despatched it secretly to
Constantinople. His sword-bearer Mehemet, who, having presided at the
execution, was entrusted with the further duty of presenting it to the sultan,
was escorted by three hundred Turkish soldiers. He was warned to be
expeditious, and before dawn was well out of reach of the Arnaouts, from
whom a surprise might have been feared.
The Seraskier then ordered the unfortunate Basilissa, whose life had been
spared, to be brought before him. She threw herself at his feet, imploring
him to spare, not her life, but her honour; and he consoled her, and assured
her of the sultan's protection. She burst into tears when she beheld Ali's
secretaries, treasurers, and steward loaded with irons. Only sixty thousand
purses (about twenty-five million piastres) of Ali's treasure could be found,
and already his officers had been tortured, in order to compel them to
disclose where the rest might be concealed. Fearing a similar fate, Basilissa
fell insensible into the arms of her attendants, and she was removed to the
farm of Bouila, until the Supreme Porte should decide on her fate.
The couriers sent in all directions to announce the death of Ali, having
preceded the sword-bearer Mehemet's triumphal procession, the latter, on
arriving at Greveno, found the whole population of that town and the
neighbouring hamlets assembled to meet him, eager to behold the head of
the terrible Ali Pacha. Unable to comprehend how he could possibly have
succumbed, they could hardly believe their eyes when the head was
withdrawn from its casket and displayed before them. It remained exposed
to view in the house of the Mussulman Veli Aga whilst the escort partook of
refreshment and changed horses, and as the public curiosity continued to
increase throughout the journey, a fixed charge was at length made for its
gratification, and the head of the renowned vizier was degraded into
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becoming an article of traffic exhibited at every post-house, until it arrived
at Constantinople.
The sight of this dreaded relic, exposed on the 23rd of February at the gate
of the seraglio, and the birth of an heir-presumptive to the sword of
Othman--which news was announced simultaneously with that of the death
of Ali, by the firing of the guns of the seraglio--roused the enthusiasm of the
military inhabitants of Constantinople to a state of frenzy, and triumphant
shouts greeted the appearance of a document affixed to the head which
narrated Ali's crimes and the circumstances of his death, ending with these
words: "This is the Head of the above-named Ali Pacha, a Traitor to the Faith
of Islam."
Having sent magnificent presents to Kursheed, and a hyperbolical despatch
to his army, Mahmoud II turned his attention to Asia Minor, where Ali's
sons would probably have been forgotten in their banishment, had it not
been supposed that their riches were great. A sultan does not condescend to
mince matters with his slaves, when he can despoil them with impunity; His
Supreme Highness simply sent them his commands to die. Veli Pacha, a
greater coward than a woman-slave born in the harem, heard his sentence
kneeling. The wretch who had, in his palace at Arta, danced to the strains of
a lively orchestra, while innocent victims were being tortured around him,
received the due reward of his crimes. He vainly embraced the knees of his
executioners, imploring at least the favour of dying in privacy; and he must
have endured the full bitterness of death in seeing his sons strangled before
his eyes, Mehemet the elder, remarkable for his beauty, and the gentle Selim
whose merits might have procured the pardon of his family had not Fate
ordained otherwise. After next beholding the execution of his brother, Salik
Pacha, Ali's best loved son, whom a Georgian slave had borne to him in his
old age, Veli, weeping, yielded his guilty head to the executioners.
His women were then seized, and the unhappy Zobeide, whose scandalous
story had even reached Constantinople, sewn up in a leather sack, was
flung into the Pursak--a river whose waters mingle with those of the Sagaris.
Katherin, Veli's other wife, and his daughters by various mothers, were
dragged to the bazaar and sold ignominiously to Turcoman shepherds, after
which the executioners at once proceeded to make an inventory of the spoils
of their victims.
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But the inheritance of Mouktar Pacha was not quite such an easy prey. The
kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was instantly
laid dead at his feet by a pistol-shot. "Wretch!" cried Mouktar, roaring like a
bull escaped from the butcher, "dost thou think an Arnaout dies like an
eunuch? I also am a Tepelenian! To arms, comrades! they would slay us!" As
he spoke, he rushed, sword in hand, upon the Turks, and, driving them
back, succeeded in barricading himself in his apartments.
Presently a troop of janissaries from Koutaieh, ordered to be in readiness,
advanced, hauling up cannon, and a stubborn combat began. Mouktar's
frail defences were soon in splinters. The venerable Metche-Bono, father of
Elmas Bey, faithful to the end, was killed by a bullet; and Mouktar, having
slain a host of enemies with his own hand and seen all his friends perish,
himself riddled with wounds, set fire to the powder magazine, and died,
leaving as inheritance for the sultan only a heap of smoking ruins. An
enviable fate, if compared with that of his father and brothers, who died by
the hand of the executioner.
The heads of Ali's children, sent to Constantinople and exposed at the gate
of the seraglio, astonished the gaping multitude. The sultan himself, struck
with the beauty of Mehemet and Selim, whose long eyelashes and closed
eyelids gave them the appearance of beautiful youths sunk in peaceful
slumber, experienced a feeling of emotion. "I had imagined them," he said
stupidly, "to be quite as old as their father;" and he expressed sorrow for the
fate to which he had condemned them.
THE END